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Dissertations and Theses
Dissertations and Theses
Spring 6-4-2015
The Cognitive Development of Expertise in an ESL Teacher: A
Case Study
Lyndsey Roos
Portland State University
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The Cognitive Development of Expertise in an ESL Teacher: A Case Study
by
Lyndsey Roos
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
in
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
Thesis Committee:
Tetyana Sydorenko, Chair
Nike Arnold
Kathy Harris
Portland State University
2015
ABSTRACT
This case study investigated how an English as a Second Language (ESL)
teacher’s cognition has both changed and stayed constant over a period of eight
years and the factors to which the teacher attributes changes or lack of changes. The
study followed the teacher over the course of a 10-week period and compared
videos of the participant’s teaching from eight years ago to her current teaching.
Interviews, observations, and stimulated recall were used to investigate
development over the eight year span. It was found that the teacher did indicate
several areas in which she demonstrated change: Teaching with fluidity,
automaticity, and intuition; confidence; concerns; management of teaching
enthusiasm and relationships with students; support and validation from
colleagues; and managing the classroom for learning. She also confirmed several
aspects of her teaching that have stayed relatively constant: beliefs and teaching
philosophy; reflection; learning from past experiences; knowledge of lesson
planning and curricular goals; and students’ needs within the learning context. The
teacher’s development was analyzed through the lens of teacher expertise to
determine to what degree the teacher’s changes and lack of changes helped her
develop into an expert. This study concludes that further research is needed to fully
understand how teacher expertise is developed during the course of teachers’
careers.
i
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would first and foremost like to thank my advisor, Tetyana Sydorenko, for
all of her help during the year I spent researching and writing this thesis. Her
guidance and encouragement were invaluable to me. I am incredibly appreciative of
her willingness to give me thoughtful and helpful feedback, even during her busy
schedule. I am also indebted to my other two committee members, Nike Arnold and
Kathy Harris. Thank you so much for helping me throughout this endeavor, from the
early stages of planning my proposal to finally reading the final draft of my thesis.
Finally, I would like to thank my participant, the talented educator who graciously
accepted my offer to participate in this study. She exceeded all my expectations in
her generosity of time and dedication to this project. Her thoughtful preparation and
responses to all my questions were invaluable and I am tremendously grateful for
all the rich data she provided.
I am also grateful to the all members of the department who have helped to
shape me during my three years in this program. I have learned so much about
Applied Linguistics because of your knowledge and insight. I feel prepared and
excited to teach English because of the supportive intellectual environment I
experienced in this department.
Finally, thank you to my family, boyfriend, and friends who supported and
encouraged me throughout this process. Your love and encouragement meant the
world to me during this experience.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….i
Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………………………...….ii
List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……v
Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………...…………………………………………...1
Chapter 2: Review of the Literature…………………………………………………………..………...5
2.1: Overview of Teacher Cognition…………………..………………………………..…...…5
2.1.1: Attitudes…………………………………………………………………………….....6
2.1.2: Beliefs…………………………………………………………………..……………….7
2.2: What Shapes Teacher Cognition?...............................................................................9
2.2.1: Observations of Previous Teachers and Environments…..……….9
2.2.2: Second Language Learning……………………………………………..…...10
2.2.3: Teacher Education Courses…………………………………………..………10
2.2.4: Teacher Reflection………………………………………………………..……...12
2.2.5: Teaching Context……………………………….………………………..………13
2.3: Change Over Time from Novice to Experienced Teacher…………….…….....13
2.3.1: Cognitive Development……..…………….…………………………….…......13
2.3.2: Teacher Concerns……………………………………………………………......14
2.3.3: Classroom Practices…………………………………………………….……….15
2.3.4: Self-Efficacy………………………………………………………..…………….....16
2.4: Expertise………………………………………………………………………………….……….17
2.4.1: Overview of Expertise…………..………….…………………………………..17
2.4.2: Expertise in Teaching………………………………………………………......20
2.5: Limitations of Previous Studies and Further Research……………………......22
2.5.1: Teacher Cognition………………………………………………………………..22
2.5.2: Teacher Expertise………………………………………………………………..24
2.6: Research Questions………………………………..…………………………………………26
Chapter 3: Methodology………………………………………………..…………………………………...27
3.1: Overall Design…………..……………………………………………………………….……...27
3.2: Context of the Study…………………………………………………………………..………28
3.3: Participants………………………………………………………………………………………29
3.4: Materials…………………………………………………………………………………………..30
3.4.1: Lab School………………………………………………………………………......30
3.4.2: Multimedia Adult English Learner Corpus…………………………….31
3.5: Data Collection Procedures………………………………………………………………..32
3.5.1: Pilot Stage……………………………………………………………………………33
3.5.2: Video-Stimulated Recall……..………………………………………………..34
3.5.3: Observations………………………...……………………………………………..35
3.5.4: Interviews……………………………………………………………….…….........36
iii
3.5.5: Previous Literature……………….…………………….….……………...........39
3.5.6: Timing of Data Collection………………….………….………………..........41
3.5.7: Summary…………………………………………………………………….……….42
3.6: Data Analysis Procedures……………………………………………………………..……42
Chapter 4: Results and Discussion…………………………………………………………….………46
4.1: Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..........46
4.2: Rebecca's Educational Background……………………………………….…..………47
4.3: Development Over Time: Changes, Modifications, and Adjustments…….49
4.3.1: Teaching with Fluidity, Automaticity, and Intuition……………..49
4.3.2: Confidence…………………………………………………………………………..52
4.3.3: Concerns…………………………………………………………………….……….55
4.3.4: Management of Enthusiasm and Relationships with Students..57
4.3.5: Support and Validation from Colleagues………………….…………..61
4.3.6: Managing the Classroom for Learning…………………………………62
4.4: Development Over Time: Staying the Course………………………………….......65
4.4.1: Beliefs and Teaching Philosophy………………………………………......66
4.4.2: Reflection………………………………………………………………………........68
4.4.3: Learning from Past Experiences………….………………………………70
4.4.4: Knowledge of Lesson Planning and Curricular Goals…………...72
4.4.5: Students’ Needs within the Learning Context……………………...74
Chapter 5: Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………...78
5.1: Summary of Findings…………………………………………………….…………………78
5.2: Limitations………………………………..………………………………………….…………..81
5.3: Implications and Suggestions for Future Research……………….…………83
References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………86
Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………………………………...93
iv
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Summary of Data Analysis and Recurring Themes………………………………….40
Table 2: Schedule of Data Collection……………………………………………………………...........41
Table 3: Summary of Analysis Codes based on Findings from Data Sources………….46
v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to add to the body of research on teacher
cognition by conducting a qualitative case study of an academic English as a Second
Language (ESL) teacher’s cognitive development as an experienced teacher. Much
has been written about the persistence of teacher cognition upon entering and
exiting pre-service teacher education programs. However, little research has
explored teacher cognition over the career span (Alger, 2009). Alger (2009) found
that, given time and experience, approximately two-thirds of teachers will change
their conceptual views of teaching over the course of their careers. Therefore,
researchers need to devote more time and attention to better understanding what
teachers think and believe about whether their teaching has changed or remained
unchanged and what might account for this development.
This study began by investigating changes and lack of changes in one teacher
working in the Intensive English Language Program (IELP) at Portland State
University (PSU) over a period of eight years, and what these changes or lack of
changes mean for her teaching today. An iterative process was used such that data
collection was informed by each stage of analysis. The original goal of this study was
to assess whether this teacher did or did not indicate change through the later part
of her career. The impact that these changes or consistencies have had on her
teaching and how they have affected her cognitive development were of particular
interest. During the data collection process, it became clear that this teacher was
1
both experienced and highly competent, so whether or not she had developed into
an expert teacher became an area of interest. I decided to investigate this teacher in
reference to whether her characteristics of expertise were consistent with or
diverged from the characteristics of expert teachers from prior literature.
Teacher expertise is an important area of teacher cognition that deserves
more attention in the field of ESL. Many people think of expertise as only related to
experience, or the number of years someone has been in a particular field, but
expertise is a much more complex construct than experience. Teacher expertise is
characterized as a highly proficient individual's quantity and quality of knowledge
about teaching (Farrell, 2014). However, expertise has sparked varying debates
among researchers about how it should be characterized. Some view expertise as a
process involving continual hard work and dedication (Bereiter and Scardamalia,
1993; Tsui, 2003, 2005), while others view it as an intuitive and unconscious skill
developed after years of diligent work (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986). The dichotomy
between the Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) model and the Bereiter and Scardamalia
(1993) model were examined in the present study because further research into
these two ideas is important to gaining a greater understanding of expertise as a
whole. In the field of Applied Linguistics, expertise and the process of developing
into an expert deserve more attention because further research into how teachers
develop expertise can help us understand how to identify and cultivate this skill in
less experienced teachers. This in turn would lead to larger numbers of expert
teachers and more quality teaching in schools (Farrell, 2014; Tsui, 2005).
2
The established goal of this study is to shed light on how an experienced ESL
teacher has developed into an expert teacher and whether she has seen changes in
her cognition and related practices that have facilitated her development. In order
to accomplish this, I examined the teacher’s views on how her cognition, or her
beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge, have changed over time and whether this has
influenced the way she approaches her current teaching. Using the significant
amount of data available through Portland State University’s ESOL Lab School in the
form of video recordings of one of the teacher’s classes, viewings of the recordings
were conducted with the participant. Observations and interviews were also
conducted during the present study to discuss her knowledge, beliefs and attitudes
about teaching, and specific examples of how her teaching has developed based on
the similarities and differences between her teaching now and at the time of the
videos. The purpose of this data collection process was to allow the teacher to
reflect on the classes she taught in the past and compare herself with the teacher
that she is today. This allowed her to assess whether she believed certain aspects of
her teaching had changed and possible reasons for this development. By analyzing
the data and comparing her teaching to the categories used to define expert teachers
in prior research, this study suggests that this teacher has in fact developed into an
expert.
This thesis consists of five chapters. In what follows, in the second chapter, I
discuss previous literature on teacher cognition and expertise, and state gaps in the
prior research and areas in need of further study. I explain how my research will
3
contribute to the field and state my research questions. In Chapter 3, I describe how
I conducted my study and the methods used for data collection and analysis. In the
fourth chapter, I present my results and discussion. Finally, in the fifth chapter, I
conclude with a summary of my findings, describe the limitations of my study, and
discuss areas for further research.
4
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
OVERVIEW OF TEACHER COGNITION
Teacher cognition is defined as "the unobservable cognitive dimensions of
teaching – what teachers know, believe, and think," and how they came to have
these beliefs and knowledge about teaching (Borg, 2003, p. 81). The field of teacher
cognition seeks to answer complex questions about how teachers come to know
what they know about teaching and how this knowledge translates into their
practices in the classroom. Woods (1996) further defined teacher cognition as
consisting of the integration of beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge (BAK). There is
a growing consensus that in order to understand language teaching better, we need
to better understand what teachers know, how they come to know it, and how they
draw on their knowledge (Ellis, 2006).
Freeman, a prominent researcher in this field, conceptualized the important
factors in teacher cognition: teaching is seen as the result of skills, knowledge,
attitudes, and awareness (Freeman, 1989). Within this model, skills, or the how of
teaching, are composed of methods, activities, techniques, and materials.
Knowledge, or the what of teaching, is made up of subject matter, knowledge of
students, and sociocultural and institutional knowledge. These two factors are
influenced by teachers’ awareness and attitude, or their stance toward themselves,
their activity and others that links intrapersonal dynamics with external
performance and behaviors. Integral to the model is the idea that teaching is not
5
static because it involves constant shifts, negotiations, and responses to numerous
variables (Freeman, 1989).
Borg (2003) also summarized teacher cognition as emerging from the
interplay between four main factors: schooling, professional coursework, contextual
factors, and classroom practice. Schooling, or the experience of being in a classroom,
defines early cognitions and shapes teachers’ perceptions of initial training.
Professional coursework, or the information teachers are exposed to during teacher
education and training, also impact existing cognitions. Contextual factors influence
practice by modifying cognitions or lead to change by exposing possible disconnects
between knowledge and practice. Classroom experience, including practice
teaching, can influence cognition unconsciously or through conscious reflection.
These factors all come together to create the networks of beliefs, knowledge, and
thoughts which language teachers hold about all aspects of their profession and
which they draw upon in their practice. This model reflects the prevalent view in the
field that many factors play a role in shaping teacher cognition and this integrated
knowledge relates closely to the work of teachers in the classroom (Borg, 2003).
Teacher Attitudes
As mentioned above, attitudes are an important aspect of teachers’ cognitive
systems. Tsui (2003) argues that expert teachers are characterized not just by what
they can do, but rather "how they understand and perceive what they do" (p. 246).
Thus, teachers’ attitudes toward their teaching can determine how effective they are
6
in the classroom. Although few studies have focused on teacher attitudes alone, Bell
(2005) outlined several attitudes that the teachers in her study agreed were positive
attitudes for effective foreign language teaching. These positive attitudes include:
genuine caring and kindness, a willingness to share classroom responsibilities, a
sincere sensitivity to the students’ diversity, a motivation to provide meaningful
learning experiences for all students, and an enthusiasm for stimulating the
students’ creativity. The study demonstrated an emerging professional consensus
that these attitudes help teachers be effective in the classroom.
If new or developing teachers are aware of these attitudes that experienced
foreign language teachers believe to be effective in teaching, they will be able to
critically reflect on their own beliefs and teaching behaviors and they may be able to
integrate these attitudes into their own cognition (Bell, 2005). This can help to
improve their teaching because effective attitudes and actions employed by teachers
have the ability to make a positive difference in the lives of their students (Bell,
2005). Therefore, understanding teachers’ attitudes toward teaching and why they
have the attitudes that they do is important for understanding how effective they
are.
Teacher Beliefs
Beliefs are an important aspect of teacher cognition and it is widely believed
that teachers’ beliefs play a significant role in their teaching practices (Borg, 2003).
Many studies have investigated the role of teacher beliefs in a variety of different
7
contexts (Burns, 1992; Mok, 1994; Nespor, 1987; Woods, 1996; Zheng, 2013),
including comparing inexperienced and experienced teachers’ stated beliefs and
their relationship to their classroom practices (Basturkmen, Loewen, & Ellis, 2004;
Fang, 1996; Sendan & Roberts, 1999) and change in beliefs or resistance to change
over time (Borg, 2011). It has been suggested that language teachers’ principles
become embedded ‘with experience’ (Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, & Thwaite, 2001,
pp. 472-473), and that principles or beliefs informed by teaching experiences are
expected to correspond more clearly with teaching practices (Basturkmen, 2012).
Therefore, it might be expected that deeply held principles would be applied more
consistently than principles acquired more recently as we might expect in the case
of new teachers (Breen et al., 2001).
However, Farrell and Bennis (2013) explored practices that converged with
or diverged from stated beliefs in a novice and an experienced teacher. They
conclude that teachers possess a set of complex beliefs that are not always realized
in their classroom practices. In their study, a more experienced teacher had more
experientially informed beliefs than a novice teacher, and these beliefs were more in
line with the experienced teacher’s classroom practices. However, the researchers
found that these beliefs sometimes diverged from his classroom practices for a
variety of reasons, including time constraints, desire to maintain rapport with
students, and other ‘realities of the classroom’ (p. 175). The authors state that both
an experienced teacher and a novice teacher “showed instances of convergence and
8
divergence that were not always easy to distinguish” (Farrell & Bennis, 2013, p.
175).
WHAT SHAPES TEACHER COGNITION?
Observations of Previous Teachers and Environments
As mentioned above, there are many interconnected factors that shape
language teacher cognition. The experience of simply being a student exposed to
different styles of teaching affects how education students form their initial views
about teaching. Lortie (1975) described teachers’ apprenticeship of observation, or
the subconsciously developed conceptions of teaching cultivated by their
experiences as learners in both general and language education classrooms.
Teachers’ initial beliefs about teaching develop from what they experience as
participants in the public side of education. They are necessarily unable to
experience the private side of education, or the thought processes in the minds of
their teachers. Pre-service teachers, then, are not aware of the conceptualizations
that serve as the foundations for why teachers do what they do. It is only when they
begin their journey into education that this develops (Freeman & Richards, 1993).
These experiences as students can create deeply held beliefs about teaching that are
carried with pre-service teachers as they enter professional development programs.
Therefore, teachers’ learning experiences as students solidify a set of beliefs about
teaching that can have a tremendous impact on classroom practices, views about the
role of the teacher and learner, and learning to teach in general (Alger, 2009).
9
Second Language Learning
In addition to classroom experiences during primary and secondary school,
the important role of second language learning has been examined by several
researchers (Basturkmen, 2012; Ellis, 2006; Flowerdew, 1998) who argue that
language teacher cognition is greatly influenced by teachers’ experiences learning a
second language. According to Basturkmen (2012), teachers' preliminary ideas
about second language teaching are largely based on their own experiences as
language learners. Language learning experiences during formative years can lead
to key insights which teachers draw from in framing their approach to their own
learners. Flowerdew (1998) found that experiencing the difficulties that second
language learners encounter gave teachers insights into how to teach a second
language "in a way that helps the students most, based on the general teaching
principles" they generated while learning a second language (Flowerdew, 1998, p.
529). Ellis (2006) further argues that "insights gained from personal experience,
particularly language learning experience, are of a different nature from the
knowledge and beliefs gained in formal teacher education," but they interact with
them cohesively to form a comprehensive cognitive understanding of teaching (A
Framework for Examining Teachers' Knowledge and Beliefs section, para. 6).
Therefore, experiences learning a second language help to formulate language
teachers' professional knowledge and belief systems.
Teacher Education Courses
10
Content knowledge and growth during teacher education is another area of
interest in teacher cognition (Freeman & Richards, 1993; Macalister, 2012; Sanchez,
2013; Verloop, 2001), and consequently the question of what it is that teachers need
to know in order to reach their full potential as language educators. Content
knowledge refers to the subject matter of language teaching, or what teachers need
to know about what they teach (Richards, 2010) and constitutes knowledge that
would not be shared with teachers of other subject areas. Understanding of
language is a key factor because both native and non-native speaking teachers must
have enough understanding of the target language to be confident, prepared
instructors. Of particular relevance is pedagogical knowledge which is “drawn from
the study of language teaching and language learning itself and which can be applied
in different ways to the resolution of practical issues in language teaching”
(Richards, 2010, p. 105). A sound grounding in relevant pedagogical knowledge
should prepare teachers to perform the tasks that are necessary for teaching a class
of foreign/second (L2) language learners.
Despite the importance of knowledge gained through teacher education
courses, many new teachers find that content and pedagogical knowledge alone is
insufficient to prepare them to be confident, informed, and effective teachers in the
classroom. This is reflected in Richard’s (1996) conceptualization of teaching
maxims. Teachers’ maxims are the “outcomes of teachers’ evolving theories of
teaching. They are personal working principles which reflect teachers’ individual
philosophies of teaching, developed from their experience of teaching and learning,
11
their teacher education experiences, and from their own personal beliefs and value
systems” (Richards, 1996, p. 293). Teaching maxims are developed through teacher
education as well as practical pre-service teaching experiences. According to Carter
and Doyle (1995), teachers’ development occurs as a result of the interplay between
personal beliefs, based on teachers’ backgrounds, the knowledge they gain from
teacher education courses, and their practical teaching experiences. Thus, the
factors inherent in teaching maxims play a crucial role alongside pedagogical and
content knowledge.
Teacher Reflection
Teacher reflection is widely believed to have direct effects on teacher
cognition and is a crucial factor in teachers’ development over time (Kang & Cheng,
2014; Richards, 2010). This explains its prevalence in many teacher education
programs. According to Freeman and Richards (1993), teacher knowledge exists in
very personal terms so it is important to recognize the impact that teachers'
experiences have on the formation of their professional knowledge and beliefs,
while still acknowledging their ability to develop and change over time. “A powerful
tool to bring about change in teachers is to enable teachers to reflect on their own
teaching so that they can make explicit their implicit beliefs” (Ping, 2010, p. 443).
Reflection can help teachers reconcile their experiences as students in order to
determine the best pedagogical choices for their classrooms and facilitate their
improvement (Mann, 2005).
12
Teaching Context
Teachers’ contexts of work also affect their cognitions. Tsui (2003) writes
that "the development of teacher knowledge is jointly constituted by the teachers'
specific context of work and their interaction with the context" (p. 280).
Furthermore, Johnson (2006) acknowledges that second language teacher
knowledge, linguistic and otherwise, is understood as “normative and lifelong, as
emerging out of and through experiences in social contexts: as learners in
classrooms and schools, as participants in professional teacher education programs,
and later as teachers in the settings where they work” (as cited in Reeves, 2009, p.
109). Therefore, how well a teacher relates to and understands their context is
clearly an important aspect of their ability to function competently as a teacher
within that context.
CHANGE OVER TIME FROM NOVICE TO EXPERIENCED TEACHER
Cognitive Development
Cognition not only shapes what teachers do in the classroom, but is in turn
shaped by teachers’ accumulated experiences (Borg, 2003). Several studies (Burns,
1992; Mok, 1994; Richards, Li & Tang, 1998; Tsui, 2003; Woods, 1996; Zheng, 2013)
have focused on comparing inexperienced and experienced teachers’ cognitive
development. Studies comparing experienced teachers with their less experienced
peers have shed light on changes in teaching that can occur over time (Borg, 2003).
13
Nunan (1992) conducted a study showing that experienced language teachers’
decisions showed greater attention to language issues than those of less
experienced teachers, who were more likely to be concerned with classroom
management, and devote more time and focus to maintaining it. This suggests that
more experienced teachers are able to focus more attention on issues of content as
they learn strategies to automatize the routines associated with managing the class.
Additionally, Richards, Li and Tang (1998) compared novice and experienced
teachers and identified areas of pedagogical knowledge in which novice teachers
were less skilled. These studies suggest that the cognition of beginning teachers is
likely to change in various ways as they gain experience.
Teacher Concerns
Teacher concerns are cognitive influences that can greatly affect language
teachers’ classroom practices (Borg, 2003). Early research by Fuller (1969) outlined
a model which conceptualized the development of teachers as passing through
phases which are sequential and accumulative. During early pre-service
preparation, prospective teachers are characterized as not concerned about
teaching, but concerned instead with their own progress as students. Early field
experience in teacher preparation leads prospective teachers to become concerned
about their survival as teachers (self concerns). As they continue in teacher
preparation, their concerns focus upon their actual performance as teachers (task
concerns). Finally, after experiencing successful teaching experiences, more mature
14
teachers' concerns focus on having a meaningful and positive impact on their
students (impact concerns).
Pigge and Marso (1997) conducted a longitudinal study over a period of
seven years. They tracked a group of teachers starting with two years of teacher
education and continuing through the first five years of teaching, while analyzing
the development of the teachers through the stages of Fuller’s model. They found
that teachers' concerns did change throughout the span of seven years, but that
there were not always strong correlations between experience and moving directly
through the stages as predicted by Fuller. Teachers did not move routinely from one
phase to another and sometimes moved in and out of phases. This study of concerns
presents a unique way of looking at cognitive development over time because we
can think of teaching concerns as being cyclical and unique to individuals in various
contexts.
Classroom Practices
Many studies (Alger, 2009; Pickering, 2005; Sendan & Roberts, 1999; Woods
& Cakir, 2011) have looked at change by comparing beginning teachers with more
experienced teachers who have one or more years of experience in the field. While
many studies have compared experienced and inexperienced teachers (Borg, 2003),
only a few studies have focused on tracking one or a few teachers’ changes over
time. Kang and Cheng (2014) conducted a case study of one novice EFL middle
school teacher and observed that she exhibited a considerable amount of change in
15
her classroom practices. This was attributed to a number of interconnected factors,
including teacher experience, reflection on practice, and the teaching context. The
study concluded that the development of this teacher’s cognition was the result of
the cyclical interaction between the teacher’s knowledge and belief system and her
classroom practices. The cyclical nature of change was demonstrated by Huberman
(1995), who argued that “changes in beliefs lead to changes in practice that bring
changes in student learning that bring further changes in practice that result in
additional changes in belief and so on” (as cited in Wong, 2013).
Self-Efficacy
Teachers’ self-efficacy is their judgments about their ability to promote
student learning (Hoy and Spero, 2005). This judgment is concerned with
perceptions of competence rather than actual levels of competence, which reflects
the degree of confidence teachers have in their abilities (Hoy & Spero, 2005). Hoy
and Spero (2005) suggest that growth of self-efficacy during “the first years of
teaching could be critical to the long-term development of teacher efficacy” (p. 344).
They studied beginning teachers to determine if there were changes in the teachers’
self-efficacy from entry into a teacher preparation program through the first year,
and concluded that their efficacy increased during student teaching, but declined
during the first year of teaching. Thus, self-efficacy and the subsequent confidence
teachers feel have been shown to be a possible source of change during the course of
teachers’ years in the field.
16
Additional previous studies have shown that self-efficacy beliefs cause
teachers to be more open to new ideas, less critical of students who make mistakes,
and influence “teachers’ persistence when things do not go smoothly and their
resilience in the face of setbacks” (Hoy and Spero, 2005, p. 345). Furthermore, Yazdi,
Motallebzadeh, and Ashraf (2014) found that teachers' self-efficacy, where selfefficacy is defined as an individual's confidence in their ability to engage in social
interaction to initiate and maintain interpersonal relationships, has a reverse
relationship with teacher burnout. Burnout is defined as the resulting fatigue,
frustration, and dissatisfaction of long-term, job-related stress (Yazdi et al., 2014, p.
1198). Hoy and Spero (2005) also describe a possible link between burnout in
teaching and “professional efficacy discrepancy, or the distance between expected
and actual levels of professional performance” (p. 346). This points to the idea that
self-efficacy can affect many different areas of a teacher’s development.
EXPERTISE
Overview of Expertise
Within teacher cognition, the area of teacher expertise focuses on the factors
that allow a teacher to be characterized as an expert, or someone highly proficient
within a specific field. Expertise across a variety of disciplines is thought to be
characterized by an individual's quantity and quality of knowledge about a
particular topic (Farrell, 2014). Thus, an expert must not only have a large amount
of knowledge, but also an ability to interact with that knowledge in a judicious and
17
insightful way. Experience, or the amount of time spent developing a skill, has also
been thought to contribute to expertise (Farrell, 2014). However, although expertise
has been equated with years of experience, the whole idea of experience necessarily
leading to expertise has been questioned by various researchers (Farrell, 2014; Tsui,
2003). Thus, the complex concept of expertise is not only about a knowledge base or
a number of years in a particular field, but encompasses how an individual relates to
their knowledge and experience.
Another dimension of expertise is "the seemingly effortless performance on
the part of experts because of their knowledge and skill" (Farrell, 2014). It is
thought that experts, with their vast expanse of knowledge, do not need to think
about a task as much because it has become 'second-nature'. Those lacking this
knowledge and skill base often struggle or must put forth more exertion with the
same task. However, the apparent ease of some experts should not diminish the fact
that their work often includes immense effort; it just may appear easy and natural to
those unfamiliar with their area of expertise (Farrell, 2014).
Farrell (2014)’s characterization of expertise draws from the model of skill
acquisition proposed by Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) in which experts "make
judgments based on their prior concrete experiences in a manner that defies
explanation" (p. 36). Expertise is conceptualized as 'knowing how' rather than
'knowing that', which means that is it based on an expert's instinctive judgments
and actions rather than a body of knowledge separate from the action (Dreyfus and
18
Dreyfus, 1986). This draws from the work of philosopher Gilbert Ryle who, in The
Concept of Mind (1949), suggests that professionals' knowledge is encompassed in
the action, a kind of "knowing-in-action" that cannot be articulated (Tsui, 2003). To
use a well-known example, riding a bike, most people know that pushing on the
pedals moves a bike forward and that holding the handlebars and turning them
steers the bike, but whether they know how to ride a bike is a different question.
Having the ability to ride a bike involves a kind of practical knowledge gained from
the experience of learning to ride a bike. Dreyfus argues that ‘knowing how’ is more
important for expertise than ‘knowing that’ for the same reason why someone can
know the mechanics of how a bike works but cannot ride one. An expert is someone
who has mastered the ‘knowing how’ of their discipline, not just the detached,
theoretical knowledge, and therefore, no longer has a need for conscious decisionmaking or problem solving. This model further proposes that because expertise is
automatic, it is also non-reflective, and that the tacit ‘knowing how’ of experts makes
it difficult for them to articulate why they can perform the way they do (Dreyfus and
Dreyfus, 1986).
In contrast to the Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) model, Bereiter and
Scardamalia (1993) take a different approach. They conceptualize experts as
individuals who continue to work hard to improve their skills, even after many
years in the field. After their experience has helped them develop routines for
certain problems they may encounter in their specific domain, they are free to
pursue new goals and solve problems at a higher level (Bereiter and Scardamalia,
19
1993). Thus, by “reinvesting” their energy in more advanced problems, they are able
to continue improving themselves. They define this process of seeking higher-level
problems and working to find the best solutions as "progressive problem solving."
For this reason, Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993) argue that rather than treating
expertise as a state to be acquired, it should instead be conceptualized as a process.
Even if one achieves a “state” of expertise, it is not certain whether that individual
will be able to maintain a level of expertise without sufficient effort. Most research
in expertise has compared experts with non-experts, but this is not likely to help us
understand the process approach to expertise, or how it is acquired (Bereiter and
Scardamalia, 1993). A greater understanding of the process of developing into an
expert, the fluid nature of expertise, and whether this model stands up against the
Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) model is important to gaining a greater understanding
of expertise as a whole.
Expertise in Teaching
Tsui, a leader in the field of teacher expertise, outlines several characteristics
of expert teachers that she has found during the course of her studies of experienced
and inexperienced teachers. Expert teachers are able to exercise autonomy in
decision making and respond flexibly to contextual discrepancies such as student
responses and disruptions. In addition, expert teachers’ are more efficient in lesson
planning, and their lesson plans are usually brief. They are able to establish
coherence between lessons and relate their lessons to the entire curriculum. Their
20
thoughts during planning show a much more integrated knowledge base than
novice teachers, and they are able to use that knowledge to deal with the
complexities of the classroom (Tsui, 2003, 2005). According to a study by Farrell
(2013), reflection is also a key component of understanding teacher expertise
because it can act as tool for teachers to bring this usually unarticulated concept to a
greater level of awareness. Richards, Li, and Tang (1998)’s study comparing
inexperienced and experienced teachers investigated teachers' pedagogical content
knowledge and how teachers solve problems that arise in the classroom. It was
found that experienced teachers differed from inexperienced teachers in four main
ways: thinking about the subject matter from the learners' perspective, acquiring a
deeper understanding of the subject matter; presenting information in appropriate
ways; and integrating language learning with overall curricular goals. Richards, Li,
and Tang (1998) highlight the importance of "examining how teachers
conceptualize lessons and the contribution of subject matter expertise and
experience to teachers' pedagogical reasoning skills" (p. 100).
Tsui (2003, 2005) critiques the conception of expertise put forth by Dreyfus
and Dreyfus (1986) and claims that expert teaching is deliberate and involves a
great deal of reflection. According to Tsui (2005), in language teaching, as in other
domains, expert teachers are those who, when the task requires it, continually put
more effort into their performance. She argues that expert teachers deliberately
attempt to improve their techniques and knowledge, and this is what makes them
experts (Tsui, 2005, pp. 179–182). These findings raise the issues of inspiration and
21
enthusiasm as possible determining factors in the acquisition of expertise. In other
words, the degree to which a teacher feels motivated to work to improve aspects of
his or her teaching may affect their development into an expert teacher. This debate
within teacher expertise, between the idea of an expert as working to improve their
skills or performing tacitly with smoothness and ease, will be examined further in
this study.
LIMITATIONS OF PREVIOUS STUDIES AND FUTURE RESEARCH
Teacher Cognition
Previous studies (Alger, 2009; Borg, 2003; Farrell, 2014; Tsui, 2003, 2005;
Wong, 2013) demonstrate that further research into the development of teacher
knowledge and beliefs over time could add valuable insights to the field of Applied
Linguistics. In his review of the literature on teacher cognition, Borg (2003) states
that researchers can only infer some of the possible changes language teachers
experience in developing the cognitions and skills characteristic of more
experienced teachers, because none of the studies he reported on were longitudinal.
He elaborates,
Further research into the processes through which teachers' cognitions and
practices are transformed as they accumulate experience is also required.
Much existing insight into this issue is based on comparisons of experienced
22
and novice teachers; longitudinal inquiries of how teachers actually change
would be an important addition to existing research here. (Borg, 2003, p. 98)
The present study will be able to expand on these limitations by discussing an
experienced teacher's change over a period of eight years. Previous studies have
also highlighted the benefit of the qualitative case study approach to research in
teacher change because this methodology allows one teacher’s development to be
examined in-depth. This approach will be used in the present study because of the
importance of paying close attention to what actually happens in the classroom and
working to understand teachers’ inner motivations for their pedagogical actions.
Also within teacher cognition, there has been substantial research about the
persistence of teacher beliefs upon entering and exiting pre-service teacher
education programs, but little research has explored teacher beliefs over the career
span (Alger, 2009). According to Alger (2009), given time and experience,
approximately two-thirds of teachers will change their conceptual views of teaching
over the course of their careers. Therefore, researchers need to devote more time
and attention to better understanding what teachers think and believe about their
own work in the classroom and how their cognition changes or remains unchanged.
Understanding change during the course of teachers’ careers is an important area
for further investigation because empirical studies of teacher beliefs to date have
yielded inconsistent findings (Wong, 2013).
23
Borg (2003) asserts that there is a need for further research into how
language teachers’ thoughts and knowledge relate to learning and how cognitions
and practices are transformed as they accumulate experience. It is important for
researchers in Applied Linguistics to focus on how a teacher’s cognitive system of
beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge translate into creating better opportunities for
student learning. Research has shown that as teachers develop into more
experienced, better qualified teachers, they become more effectively able to respond
to their students’ needs (Borg, 2003). A qualitative study looking into teacher
cognition and changes over a significant period of time would add much to the field
of Applied Linguistics. This area deserves further attention and research because
answers to these questions have direct correlations with policy decisions about
teacher training and education. Therefore, more diverse research, on different
aspects of teacher cognition, is necessary to strengthen the current findings in the
field so as to enact positive changes in future policy decisions. For these reasons,
this study investigated an experienced teacher’s views and reflections on her
changes or lack of changes over a period of time, including what factors may have
contributed to changes or consistencies in her teaching.
Teacher Expertise
Early studies on teacher expertise mostly took the form of novice-expert
comparisons by evaluating novice and expert teachers and how they differ in their
classroom practices, thoughts, and beliefs (Farrell, 2013; Tsui, 2003). There is a
24
need for more studies of expertise that investigate experienced teachers in-depth,
rather than just comparing them to novice teachers. Tsui (2005) claims that
expertise has received insufficient focus in the field of second language acquisition.
“Relatively little work has been done on expertise in ESL teaching and still less on
the development of expertise in ESL teaching” (Tsui, 2003, p. 3). Farrell (2014) also
notes that research conducted on expertise in English language teaching has been
limited and that further studies on the process of achieving expertise through
reflection would be valuable. Thus, there is a need for more studies examining ESL
teacher expertise and looking specifically at how it develops over time. Because
there have already been several studies comparing experienced and novice teachers
(Leinardt & Greeno, 1986; Tsui, 2003), this study seeks to present an in-depth case
study of the development of expertise of one experienced teacher over time, rather
than comparing her to other teachers of various levels of experience.
Tsui (2005) notes that, “while there are numerous studies on teachers’
professional growth over time, not many have been done from the perspective of
expertise as a process” (p. 179) According to Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993),
expertise has been treated as both a static and dynamic element. As a state, it can be
conceived of as a state of competency within a given domain. However, within
language teaching, this does not adequately account for the process of becoming an
expert and maintaining expertise. The process through which a teacher achieves a
level of expertise is of crucial importance to our understanding of this concept.
While there have already been various studies comparing novice and experienced
25
teachers and how they differ, further research is needed on how expertise is
acquired and maintained. By only comparing experts and non-experts, it is difficult
to fully understand expertise because expert teaching can be confused with
experienced teaching (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993). Therefore, studies of
expertise should focus on the development of expertise, or the changes that occur in
experienced teachers. Further research is needed to better understand expert
teaching as a process and how an experienced teacher develops into an expert.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The focus of the present study changed during the course of data collection. I
originally planned to focus on changes or lack of changes in teacher cognition and
pick a more specific area within this field based on my findings. As evidenced by the
data I collected, however, the study will address the following research questions:
1) What changes does an experienced academic ESL teacher report in her
teaching over a period of eight years and how have they impacted her
teaching?
2) How does expertise evidence itself in this teacher’s changes or lack or
changes in cognition (knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes)?
26
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
OVERALL DESIGN
The planned study draws on the qualitative case study approach. Mackey and
Gass (2005) characterize case study research as research that aims to provide a
holistic description within a specific population and setting. Although case studies
are limited in the difficulty of making generalizations from the specific case to the
general population (Mackey & Gass, 2005), the phenomenon in question can be
studied in detail, providing rich contextualization to highlight the complexities
involved. Another positive aspect of qualitative case studies is that they have the
potential to provide in-depth analyses using rich and thick description. This study
can be characterized as a case study because data from only one teacher was used
and the complexities of her teaching experience were examined and analyzed.
Case study research has been shown to have great potential for examining
development and change over time (Ping, 2010; Sun, 2012; Xu, 2013). Crookes and
Arakaki (1999) showed that a teacher’s set of beliefs is uniquely individual and best
accessed by a case study approach focusing on one teacher rather than trying to
understand the belief systems of many teachers at once. Personally individual
aspects of teacher development, such as identity formation or change in identity
over time, are ideal for case study research (Crookes & Araki, 1999). For this reason,
examining the very personal issues of teacher cognition and development over time
is best done through a case study approach. Mackey and Gass (2005) suggest that
27
findings from multiple case studies can be examined together to help researchers
draw stronger conclusions. Thus, the present case study can add to existing research
on teacher cognition. There is potential for more comprehensive conclusions to be
drawn about change in teacher cognition by examining work done in other case
studies.
According to Basturkmen (2012), case studies have essentially heuristic
objectives designed to generate hypotheses. She argues that it is time to move
research beyond description, and instead focus on more comparative case studies.
She suggests comparing relatively experienced teachers with inexperienced
teachers as an example (Basturkmen, 2012). The present study aimed to fill this gap
in research by comparing a teacher at different points during her teaching career
with the goal of examining differences and similarities between her cognition as a
less experienced teacher and a more experienced teacher.
This case study followed a qualitative, exploratory design. The study is
exploratory because I aimed to find information to answer the research questions,
but I did not start with any particular hypothesis. Also pilot observations were
conducted to serve as baseline data and inform the questions used in interviews. It
is also highly qualitative because I focus on the social world of the participant, or her
experience in a natural setting, and data was gathered through a variety of
qualitative methods.
CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
28
The Intensive English Language Program (IELP) is a full immersion English
program at Portland State University (PSU). It has offered academic English
language instruction to thousands of international students since its establishment
in 1964. The IELP is one of the largest and oldest English-as-a-second-language
university programs in the state of Oregon. The mission of the IELP is to help nonnative English speakers achieve their academic, professional, and personal goals by
assisting them in acquiring the necessary knowledge and language skills (Portland
State University, 2014).
PARTICIPANTS
The participant in this case study is a senior IELP instructor who started
teaching ESL in the U.S. in 1997. She started teaching in the IELP as an adjunct, and
soon became a full-time, fixed-term faculty member. She received her certificate in
TESOL and a Master’s degree from a four-year university1. Research suggests that as
teachers develop into more experienced, better qualified teachers, they become
better able to evaluate their own teaching (Sendan & Roberts, 1999). Therefore, a
study using a teacher who is experienced, as in this study, will likely lead to more
accurate assessments from her about her own teaching. Permission to use the
teacher’s interview responses, observation notes, and video recording data in this
study was obtained through a signed consent form completed by the participant.
1
Details omitted to protect the identity of the participant.
29
The initial pool of participants was a convenience sampling of IELP teachers
who all volunteered to be part of the initial video data study (in which teachers were
video-recorded to contribute to a corpus of videos of IELP teaching described in
more detail below). The participant used in this study was selected from the group
of other instructors for several reasons. She met the requirements of being a
participant in the original study while continuing to teach in the IELP, and was thus
available for this study. This teacher also had availability for an in-depth case study
and expressed a willingness to participate in a study that involved multiple data
collection sessions. This included the time commitment of numerous interviews,
meetings, and classroom observations. Finally, of all the teachers who participated
in the initial study, I knew this teacher best because I had previously collaborated
with her in one of her classes. It was my hope that the selected teacher would feel
more comfortable communicating with me than any of the other teachers because of
our shared history.
MATERIALS
Lab School
The PSU ESOL Lab School is a national research center engaged in classroombased research and professional development focusing on ESL. It was designed to
strengthen programs serving adult ESL learners across the country through
educational research and experimentation within the context of existing ESL
programs. Since 2005, the Lab School has recorded courses from Portland State's
30
Intensive English Language Program as well as Portland Community College (PCC)
classes. The Lab School is modeled after similar “lab schools” found in K-12
education. In these environments, an elementary or secondary school operates in
partnership with a nearby university engaged in teacher preparation and
educational research. These lab schools serve as settings where teacher preparation,
educational research and program development can take place. Stephen Reder,
prior director of the Lab School, described the goal of the Lab School as a
collaborative endeavor to improve ESL programs in order to actively engage
learners, teachers, and researchers, and better serve local, regional, and national
needs. The Lab School at PSU has established a setting where applied research can
be conducted cooperatively by university-based researchers, teacher trainers and
service providers (Reder, 2005).
Multimedia Adult English Learner Corpus
One data source for the present study is the Multimedia Adult English
Learner Corpus (MAELC), a collection of audio-visual recordings available through
the Lab School. This data consists of classroom interactions between ESL learners
working collaboratively and between teachers and ESL learners in the classroom
(Reder, Harris, & Setzler, 2003). The classrooms were equipped with video cameras
and students were given wireless microphones; the teacher wore a microphone at
all times (Reder, Harris, & Setzler, 2003). The videos were organized by academic
quarter. Fall 2007, in which the participant was teaching Level 1 Grammar/Writing,
31
was selected for the present study. This term was chosen because it was the second
quarter in which the teacher participated in the video recordings and she was
teaching a class of low-level learners, just as she was in her 2015 class. I hoped the
teacher would be more used to the process of filming than in her first term
participating, and her teaching in the videos would therefore be more reflective of
her authentic teaching at that time.
According to Reder, Harris, and Setzler (2003), the project has developed
specialized software called ClassAction, a set of interrelated software programs, to
attach activity and content codes and transcriptions of classroom language to the
multimedia corpus. The corpus videos can be viewed using Toolbox, one of the
ClassAction programs. The Toolbox program is a data management and analysis tool
for field linguists. It can be used to view synchronized camera views with audio and
to view, enter, and edit associated codes, transcripts, and annotations. Toolbox
provides a way to save and organize the corpus videos for researcher viewing
(Reder, Harris, & Setzler, 2003). For this research, I was able to gain access to
Toolbox and the corpus by making an inquiry to a Lab School administrator.
DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES
Three forms of data gathering were used in order to capture and compare
the fluidity of change over time: in-depth semi-structured interviews, classroom
observations, and stimulated recall, following the data collection procedures used in
previous studies of teacher cognition by Kang and Cheng (2014), Woods (1999), and
32
Zheng (2013). This allowed the teacher participant’s changes in cognition to be
analyzed in a variety of different ways. The study took a dual approach: first, I
looked at previous research on teacher cognition and the video data of the focal
teacher and used these sources to prepare the initial interview questions. Second,
additional interview questions were structured around the teacher's responses to
previous questions. This served as a way of letting the teacher participant provide
data about what she has noticed in terms of change, rather than only what I
observed. This method was based on studies (by Kang and Cheng (2014), Kuzborska
(2011), Wong (2013), and Zheng (2013)) that used dual approaches. As Kang and
Cheng (2014) describe, "the data collection process was cyclical in nature, with each
successive stage being influenced by the analysis of the data already collected"
(p.174). Data collection took place over the course of a 10-week academic quarter
(1/5/15 – 3/15/15). I observed and/or met with the teacher a total of ten times,
including the pilot stage.
Pilot Stage
As outlined in Wong (2013), there was a pilot stage before the 10-week
period of data collection in 2015. Two classroom observations of the teacher were
conducted in 2014. These observations were designed to collect base-line data for
preliminary areas of focus and interview questions. I also watched several lab
school videos of the teacher participant throughout the Fall 2007 term to inform
questions for stimulated recall interviews. These videos and observations of the
33
classroom were iteratively examined together in order to identify aspects of
teaching to focus on and to inform possible areas for further investigation in
subsequent interviews.
Video-Stimulated Recall
Stimulated recall methodology is an introspective method of prompting
participants to recall thoughts they had while performing a task or participating in
an event. This is accomplished by presenting the participant with a visual or aural
stimulus to aid them in recalling details of the event itself. As a result, a research
subject may be able to relive the original situation vividly and accurately, recalling
their cognitive processes during the event (Mackey & Gass, 2000). Stimulated recall
interviews can be used to elicit teachers' thoughts or beliefs underlying specific
practices and to help them recall details of teaching sessions that they might
otherwise not be able to do (Kuzborska, 2011; Zheng, 2013).
Stimulated recall interviews are usually conducted immediately after the
event (Mackey & Gass, 2000). However, in this study, a type of delayed stimulated
recall was used in which selected videos of the participant's teaching from eight
years ago were watched between the teacher participant and the researcher and a
follow-up interview was conducted after each viewing. Despite the limitations of the
timing of the videos, stimulated recall was selected as a data collection method for
this study because I believed the Lab School videos were a rich and unique source of
possible data. The goal of this study was to examine development over the career
34
span and I believed watching and discussing the videos together could be a useful
method of obtaining data about the teacher’s cognitions from that time. As Borg
(2006) discussed, stimulated recall can be used as “the basis of concrete discussions
of what the teachers were doing, their interpretations of the events represented in
the stimuli and of their reasons for the instructional decisions they were taking” (as
cited in Kuzborska, 2011, p. 107). Given that the focus of the present study was
possible changes over time, I decided to use stimulated recall as a data collection
procedure because of the high quality of data that could be obtained by using the
video stimuli. I predicted that this method would enable the teacher to recall aspects
of her teaching from many years ago and be more confident in her ability to respond
accurately to questions about her previous teaching.
Observations
Observations allow the researcher to be immersed in a research setting and
systematically witness various dimensions of that setting. They have the advantage
of allowing the researcher to collect large amounts of rich data on participants’
behaviors and actions. Longitudinal, repeated observations allow the researcher to
gain a deeper understanding of the context and participants (Mackey & Gass, 2005).
Observations do not give the researcher access to the participant’s’ motivation for
their behaviors (Mackey & Gass, 2005). For this reason, this study combined
observations with the other techniques detailed in this section.
35
Four classroom observations were conducted, two without interviews and
two followed by interviews with the teacher participant. The purpose of these
observations was to examine the teacher's style of teaching and look for salient
features and particular interactions with students to use in further interviews and
analysis. By asking interview questions after observations, I was able to ascertain
the teacher's rationales for certain pedagogical choices and how she felt about
particular classes. Detailed field notes were made during the observations, outlining
descriptions of the teaching steps and student behavior during the lessons, the
teacher’s interactions with students, my impressions and questions, and any other
notable aspects of the lesson (Wong, 2013). All the post-lesson interviews were held
immediately after the classroom observations.
Interviews
Six open-ended and semi-structured interviews with the teacher participant
were conducted: a background interview, two stimulated recall interviews, two
semi-structured interviews following observations, and a final interview to answer
remaining questions. Interview questions were based on 1) themes, models, and
dichotomies that surfaced in relevant previous literature, 2) apparent changes or
lack of changes based on classroom observations and my previous viewings of the
Lab School videos, and 3) themes emerging through interviews, such as responses
that occurred repeatedly and ideas that indicated possible changes or consistencies
that the teacher seemed open to discussing. Open questions were mostly used to
36
allow the teacher opportunities to develop her replies in ways which I might not
have foreseen. Examples of these types of questions related to change over time
include: Do you notice areas in which you think your teaching has changed? and Is
there anything you notice that you continue to do while teaching? These openended questions were prepared prior to the interview session and additional
questions were asked if relevant to the participant's response (See Appendix). All
interviews lasted between 30 and 90 minutes and were audio-recorded. An audit
trail of the date of each interview was used to keep track of these occurrences.
Details about each type of interview are presented below.
1.
Background Interview:
Before discussing areas of the video, I conducted a background interview
with the teacher to gain information about her teaching history. These initial
interview questions were more structured and explored the questions of why the
participant decided to pursue teaching as a career, what her experiences were like
as a student (in secondary school, college, and in teacher education), and how they
have affected her teaching from a beginning teacher until today.
2.
Stimulated Recall Interviews:
Two of the interviews used in this study were stimulated recall interviews. I
first watched several Lab School videos from Fall 2007 during the pilot study. These
video observations, as well as subsequent classroom observations, helped to inform
37
which videos I selected for each interview. Before each stimulated recall interview, I
watched the videos again and selected a few excerpts from one or two videos to
watch with the teacher. To be comprehensive of the teacher’s development
throughout the term, I used portions of videos from the beginning of the term in the
first stimulated recall interview and the end of the term in the second interview.
Because the classes were two hours long, it was not feasible to watch the whole
video with the teacher. I looked for portions of the class in which the teacher
instructed the students or interacted with them. I excluded occasions in which
students were working silently or in small groups. I selected portions of the videos
in this way so that the participant could see and evaluate her own teaching, rather
than the students’ participation in class. After watching portions of the classes from
2007 with the participant, she was asked about various aspects of each teaching
session. As discussed above, these interview questions were designed to elicit the
teacher’s responses to her teaching and explore how her teaching has changed or
remained constant over time. Examples of stimulated recall questions include: How
do you feel about this particular lesson? and Does anything stand out to you in
terms of how you’re teaching here vs. today? After stimulated recall interviews,
responses were examined and questions were prepared for subsequent interviews.
3.
Semi-Structured Interviews:
Two interviews were conducted following in-person observations of the
teacher’s classes in 2015. These interviews were less structured than the
38
background and stimulated recall interviews. Following the structure used by Kang
and Cheng (2014), I observed the teacher’s current teaching, prepared some
questions based on what I observed, and discussed my observation notes with the
teacher immediately after the lesson. I began these interviews by asking the
participant to comment on her lesson plan for the day and her thoughts about the
class, followed by questions seeking her explanations for specific teaching moments
or interactions. I then asked additional questions that had been prepared ahead of
time. I compared the interview notes to the previous interviews to look for trends
emerging in the data, and focused on those aspects in preparing questions for
additional interviews (See Table 1). A final interview was conducted to answer the
remaining questions I had accrued and clarify any ambiguities from previous
interviews.
Previous Literature
Two studies that focused on changes in teacher cognition over time helped to
shape initial interview questions. The model proposed by Fuller (1969) outlines a
picture of teacher change in which teachers progress from concerns about the self to
task concerns to impact concerns. The degree to which this teacher progressed
through these stages was believed to be a possible area to start analyzing changes. I
looked for categories within each stage (self concerns, task concerns, and impact
concerns) to prepare interview questions about teacher concerns. The second study
which informed questions was Zheng's (2013) study of changes in beliefs, in which
39
he outlined the following “belief codes”: beliefs about ESL; beliefs about ESL
teaching; beliefs about ESL learning; beliefs about ESL learners; beliefs about ESL
teachers. These five categories of teacher beliefs served as a starting point for
discovering the teacher's belief system and how it may have developed. These two
studies were chosen as starting points for interview questions because they
examine development over time through the lens of two aspects of teacher
cognition: beliefs and concerns. In Interviews 2 and 3, questions were formulated
based on the findings from these studies and other interview questions were
formulated based on the teacher's responses (See Table 1).
Table 1: Summary of Data Analysis and Recurring Themes
Interview #
Topic of Interview
Themes that emerged from interview
1
Background;
teacher training
experiences
Teacher concerns
Differences between teaching as a beginning and
more experienced teacher; culture of service;
empathy; authenticity; confidence
Classroom management; curriculum; intuition;
changes in the teacher's concerns; empathy;
teacher's environment; context
Teacher's belief system; empathy; belief
development; changes in teaching presentation;
curriculum objectives
Understanding of low-level learners; structure of the
class; classroom discipline; lateness; 'unengaged'
students; routines; context
Teacher's environment; importance of context;
changes in the teacher's attitude and practices;
teacher's knowledge of students; empathy
2
3
Beliefs and changes
in beliefs
4
Classroom
management
5
Context; teaching
philosophy;
reflections on
teaching
Curriculum; teacher
knowledge;
teaching strategies
6
Teaching context; knowledge of curriculum; fluidity;
modifying teaching based on student feedback
40
Timing of Data Collection
In 2014, in the term prior to the term of data collection, I conducted a pilot
study as described above. The data collection for the actual study included the
following steps: first alone and then together with the teacher, I watched two Lab
School videos from the 2007 class, one from the beginning of the term, and one from
the end of the term and conducted a stimulated recall interview based on each
video. I attended four classes the teacher taught in 2015 at different times
throughout the term: during the beginning, middle, and end of the term, and
conducted interviews following two of those observations. By doing observations
and interviews at different times throughout the term, the data is representative of
the teacher’s style of teaching at different times during the length of the course. At
the beginning of the term (1/8/15), I met with the teacher to make a schedule of
when interviews and observations would take place. For the most part, one data
collection procedure took place every week. Two interviews had to be rescheduled
and moved to the following weeks because the teacher had a conflict (See Table 2).
Table 2: Schedule of Data Collection
Type of Data
Date
Pilot Classroom Observation of a 2014 class
11/28/14
Pilot Classroom Observation of a 2014 class
12/5/14
Observation of a 2007 Lab School Video
12/8/14
Classroom Observation 1 of a 2015 class
1/12/15
Background Interview 1
1/15/15
41
Classroom Observation 2 of a 2015 class & Interview 2
1/23/15
Observation of a 2007 Lab School Video
1/28/15
Stimulated recalla Interview 3
1/29/15
Classroom Observation 3 of a 2015 class
2/2/15
Classroom Observation 4 of a 2015 class & Interview 4
2/13/15
Observation of a 2007 Lab School Video
3/2/15
Stimulated recall Interview 5
3/3/15
Final/wrap-up Interview 6
3/10/15
a Note.
All stimulated recall interviews were based on the Lab School videos from 2007.
Summary
To summarize the data collection procedures: first, I watched videos of the
teacher from eight years ago and did two pilot observations of her current teaching.
Next, questions were formulated based on these viewings and research from
previous literature. Then, data was collected about the teacher’s cognitive
development using stimulated recall, interviews, and observations. Interview
questions were shaped by previous studies and in response to the trends that
emerged from the participant's responses.
DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES
In exploring the teacher’s cognitive development through analysis of the
three data collection methods, a deductive approach was combined with an
inductive approach, as outlined in Kuzborska (2011). The data was analyzed in an
exploratory manner to avoid either imposing prior categories of analysis or
42
prematurely forming such categories without enough data (Wong, 2013). An
iterative process was used whereby each stage of data analysis informed the
subsequent stage of data collection.
Qualitative research often changes course as a study progresses based on the
findings from the data (Mackey & Gass, 2005). Therefore, the research questions
guiding this study changed several times based on the data I collected. The original
goal of this study was to understand something about the changes that occurred in a
teacher's cognitions through the course of her career. I planned to choose a specific
area within teacher cognition to focus on based on the data I got from the pilot study
and the initial interviews. As data collection continued, it seemed that teacher
expertise encompassed many aspects of the teacher's development, as topics seen in
findings from previous studies of teacher expertise emerged many times during our
discussions. Therefore I decided to use teacher expertise as a lens to analyze this
teacher's development over time. I deliberately did not mention ‘teacher expertise’
during interviews so as to not influence the participant's responses in any way. After
transcribing and taking notes on the audio recordings of the data, I gave the written
notes to the participant to look at and correct any fallacies or misinterpretations she
perceived.
Following the analysis procedures of Kang and Cheng (2014), I first listened
to the recordings of interviews multiple times and loosely transcribed the text. After
reading the transcripts in detail and noticing which themes had emerged, I coded
43
the teacher’s responses using the teacher expertise categories from Tsui (2003) and
Farrell (2013). The following categories were used as initial teacher expertise codes
of analysis from Tsui (2003): ability to integrate and use different kinds of
knowledge; desire to solve a wide range of teaching problems; management of
learning; ability to make intuitive judgments and teach with fluidity and
automaticity; greater awareness and understanding of the learning context and
students’ needs; understanding of language learning strategies; and awareness of
instructional objectives and the curriculum. Farrell (2013)'s study of teacher
expertise used the following five codes: knowledge of learners, learning and
teaching; engagement in critical reflection; accessing prior experiences; informed
lesson planning; and active student involvement (Farrell, 2013).
Next, I analyzed and organized the prevalent codes I found according to
changes and consistencies the teacher described. The four areas of language
teaching which novice teachers were less skilled in Richards, Li and Tang's (1998)
study (thinking about the subject matter from the learner’s perspective; having a
deep understanding of the subject matter; knowing how to present subject matter in
appropriate ways; and knowing how to integrate language learning with broader
curricular goals) were used as initial codes of analysis for examining development
over time. Thus, the coding was conducted both "deductively using a priori
categories derived from the literature, and inductively by identifying the concepts
that formed these categories as they emerged from the data" (Kang & Cheng, 2014,
p. 174). I analyzed the data through these initial codes, which served to generate
44
further ideas to be explored and to identify emergent thematic elements (Harklau,
2000). I reformed some of the codes to be more representative of the information I
found in the data sources. Thus, the most comprehensive codes were adapted to
best characterize the trends found in this data (See Table 3).
45
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
INTRODUCTION
This chapter will discuss the results of the study. First, the background of the
teacher used in the study will be described. Next, I will discuss the development of
the teacher over time and aspects of her teaching that have changed and remained
constant as demonstrated by the data sources. The teacher expertise codes used in
the analysis can be seen in Table 3.
Table 3: Summary of Analysis Codes based on Findings from Data Sources
Aspects of teaching that indicated change
Aspects of teaching that did not indicate
change
•Teaching with fluidity, automaticity,
•Beliefs and teaching philosophy
and intuition
•Reflection
•Confidence
•Learning from past experiences
•Concerns
•Knowledge of lesson planning and
•Management of teaching enthusiasm
curricular goals
and relationships with students
• Students’ needs within the learning
• Support and validation from colleagues
context
•Managing the classroom for learning
The teacher's changes and consistencies will be discussed in terms of her
development of expertise, their relevance to previous literature, and the research
questions:
46
1) What changes does an experienced academic ESL teacher report in her
teaching over a period of eight years and how have they impacted her
teaching?
2) How does expertise evidence itself in this teacher’s changes or lack or
changes in cognition (knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes)?
These questions will be discussed together because as Tsui (2003) says, the
professional development of teachers "cannot be discussed separately from the
factors that shaped their development, and hence the development of expertise" (p.
245). Furthermore, Farrell (2013) states that the characteristics in his study of ESL
teacher expertise "should be seen in a holistic manner because they are not isolated
as each is linked to the other and each builds on the other" (p. 1079). The name
‘Rebecca’ was chosen as a pseudonym and some details were omitted to protect the
participant’s identity.
Rebecca's teaching has developed over the course of her many years as an
ESL instructor. Her experience is grounded in a strong basis of pedagogical and
content knowledge and many years of practical experience, yet Rebecca is not just
an experienced teacher. This paper will describe how Rebecca has become an expert
teacher through her development over time.
REBECCA’S EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
47
As I learned from the initial background interview, Rebecca has been
teaching in the IELP at Portland State University for 15 years. She started as an
adjunct but was hired full time two years later. She felt that she would become
either a teacher or a nurse because they were the models around her as she grew
up. Rebecca became more interested in the profession of teaching because she had
always enjoyed English and language arts classes and ended up majoring in English
as an undergraduate. She initially decided to focus on ESL because it was something
practical to do with an English degree. Rebecca studied at a private university which
emphasized a culture of public service and giving back. It required students to do a
service learning project and Rebecca chose to go to China and teach English. As her
first experience teaching English, it helped her realize she was interested in the
field. She completed her TESOL certificate and a Master’s degree and spent several
years teaching abroad in Japan. She admitted, “Everything that I learned when I got
my degree seems a bit outdated now” (Interview 1:1/15). Since then, she has
attended TESOL conferences and workshops, has participated in focus groups and
book clubs, and has observed colleagues’ classes to improve her understanding of
the TESOL field. Rebecca also has several years of experience in teacher education.
Rebecca has studied Spanish and some Japanese. For her, the experience of
learning a second language has been fun but challenging and has helped her develop
an understanding of the challenges of language learning including how long it takes
to become proficient and the differences between proficiency in productive and
receptive skills. As she draws on her experiences learning a second language, she
48
incorporates empathy into her approach to teaching: “Learning a second language
really helps you understand teaching because you know what it’s like to be on the
other side of the desk” (Interview 1:1/15). Rebecca aims to put herself in the
learner’s position – to think about what she would want or need in that position to
attain proficiency in a language.
DEVELOPMENT OVER TIME: CHANGES, MODIFICATIONS, AND ADJUSTMENTS
These following categories were found to be prevalent in the data and were
selected for analysis for both their widespread appearance in the data and the fact
that they had previously been documented in prior studies. Rebecca's views of her
changes over time were characterized by six main themes:
•
Teaching with Fluidity, Automaticity, and Intuition
•
Confidence
•
Concerns
•
Management of Teaching Enthusiasm and Relationships with Students
•
Support and Validation from Colleagues
•
Managing the Classroom for Learning
Teaching with Fluidity, Automaticity, and Intuition
According to Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986), expert teachers are more effective
in handling classroom events, more discerning and better able to improvise.
Furthermore, expert teachers have been described as “having the ability to perform
49
with 'automaticity', 'fluidity', and 'effortlessness'" (Tsui, 2003, p. 268). This aspect of
expert teaching stood out during discussions of Rebecca’s teaching. When she
started teaching, Rebecca was initially really scared because she doesn’t like public
speaking. “I had to get out of my own head and learn to really be there for the
students” (Interview 1:1/15). As a less experienced teacher, she explained feeling
"married to the lesson plan" and that she struggled to be spontaneous in the
classroom. For these reasons, she had a tendency to rush through her lesson plans
too quickly because she struggled with being able to relax, trust herself and go
deeper with the lesson material. “Slowing down and believing in the process was the
biggest challenge for me” (Interview 1:1/15). This was characteristic of her style of
teaching as a non-expert.
Further explanations of her teaching made it clear that automaticity and
fluidity developed in Rebecca’s later teaching. Now, Rebecca can easily make
decisions and judgments based on intuition. For example, she explained that she
thinks about the impact she might have on her students “subconsciously, to make
the class interesting and fun, and to help them see the value of certain things”
(Interview 2: 1/23). After an observation of one of Rebecca’s classes, in which she
decided to give the students a break earlier than planned after a group activity,
Rebecca described the choice: “It felt naturally like a good time to close. Some of
them needed more time to work on their homework. I’m better at doing it than
explaining it” (Interview 2:1/23). This account of unconscious decision-making
shows that Rebecca naturally knows the best pedagogical choices for her students.
50
Rebecca also indicated fluidity and automaticity in her teaching when she
described how she prepares students to know what to expect in class and how to do
certain activities. “I used to do more scaffolding in the past when I taught other
classes, but now I feel like I’ve just gotten into a groove and if they seem to get it, I
kind of just go with it” (Interview 2:1/23). Additionally, she describes the way she
gives instructions and introduces activities as, “It’s kind of about finding a groove, a
comfort zone, and a harmony in the classroom. I try to find ways to do that. I try to
give a lot of examples, but I also try to give students time to ask questions”
(Interview 2:1/23). Furthermore, when asked how she makes sure she gets through
everything required in the curriculum, she replied,
There are certain things they need to be able to do to be successful in the
next level that I hit early and I hit often. I don’t go through it check mark by
check mark so I won’t leave out something really important. It’s a more
circular approach. But that’s because I’ve been doing it a lot and I know my
rhythm. (Interview 6:3/10)
These examples further show that Rebecca’s teaching has become fluid and
automatic. She knows how to be successful in the classroom because she has the
experience to know her “groove” or "rhythm" as she explains it, that makes her feel
fully embodied in the role of teaching. This supports the Dreyfus and Dreyfus model
of expertise, that experts have achieved such a high level of ease and intuitiveness in
51
their area of expertise that they cannot adequately articulate how they do
something – they simply do it well.
Tsui (2003) described a teacher she considered an expert, Marina, and found
that Marina did not fit this particular characteristic of expertise. Marina made very
deliberate choices while teaching and didn’t describe her experience in the
classroom as automatic and effortless. However, in Rebecca's teaching, she
demonstrates that she follows this aspect of the Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) model.
Her description of the "groove" or "rhythm" that she falls into when teaching clearly
articulates intuitive actions. Rebecca also seems to have a hard time describing how
to characterize her sense of ease with teaching, as when she said, "I’m better at
doing it than explaining it” (Interview 2:1/23). These examples show that a sense of
"automaticity" or "fluidity" is a part of Rebecca's expertise in teaching. These
findings are corroborated by Farrell (2013), who concluded that his expert teachers
"showed that they possess the ability to make intuitive judgments based on their
combined past experiences…but that it is not just blindly following these past
experiences but doing so in a professional manner" (pp. 1076-1077). Thus, it
appears that having and maintaining an intuitive sense of how to proceed in a given
teaching situation can be an aspect of teaching expertise.
Confidence
As Rebecca gained more experience, she began to develop a greater
understanding of how to be an effective teacher. This gave her more confidence in
52
herself as a teacher and in her ability to effectively help students. Describing her
present teaching, she said, “It’s more fun now. I’m into the experience and am
present with it. If something takes things in a different way, that’s fine with me. I’m
happy to go with the way the students are taking things. I know we’ll get back on
track” (Interview 1:1/15). As a result of her increased confidence, Rebecca finds the
experience of teaching itself much easier now. She noted that as a teacher, “I feel
thoroughly embodied when I’m in that role. I feel that I’m the person to help them in
that situation. Before, I wasn’t sure and I felt more fragile. Now I’m more authentic”
(Interview 1:1/15). Rebecca’s confidence in herself has made her teaching improve
because she has greater enjoyment of teaching, better understands what is effective
in the classroom, and has become a more authentic educator.
As a beginner, Rebecca didn’t feel comfortable moving away from the lesson
plan because she didn’t have the confidence to know that the class would get back
on track. “I know that I have the tools to help the students and I used to just be
married to the lesson plan because I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t veer from it because I
didn’t have the confidence” (Interview 1:1/15). Now, because her confidence has
increased, Rebecca is more willing to depart from the specifics of the lesson plan in
order to meet the students’ needs. “I’m a lot more relaxed and a lot more confident
because I’ve had experience to know that we don’t have to stick to the plan”
(Interview 1:1/15). This improved confidence has led greater effectiveness and a
calm demeanor to characterize Rebecca’s present teaching. Similarly, Farrell (2013),
reported that among the expert teachers in his study, "over the years, their views
53
towards lesson planning have changed" (p. 1078). They too were more willing to
adapt if the lesson took them in a different direction (Farrell, 2013).
Through our interviews, it became evident that Rebecca's confidence and
ease in the classroom have increased as she has gained greater experience as a
teacher. This is something she noticed during a viewing of one of the videos of her
teaching from eight years ago. She noticed,
I feel like I’m saying a lot of information. And I’m checking in with them and
speaking pretty clearly, which I would still do, but it feels like I’m talking a
little bit faster than I do now. And I’m repeating things because I’m not sure
they understood it whereas now I might just choose my words more carefully
and speak a little more slowly and clearly. Now I feel like I would speak a
little more calmly, slower, and confidently. Maybe not saying ‘so’ as much or
having to repeat myself as much. (Interview 5: 3/3)
Rebecca clearly saw differences between her teaching at the time of the videos and
her teaching now and attributed this to her increased confidence. To account for the
factors that may have contributed to these changes, she explained,
I feel that I have a little bit different style now in terms of being more relaxed
and that helps me think a little more about what I’m going to say and be able
to say something a little more effectively…I think it comes from experience,
54
positive feedback, learning by trial and error, and confidence, which has
allowed me to present a calmer demeanor. (Interview 5:3/3)
This demonstrates a positive development over time in which Rebecca has become
more calm, confident, and relaxed in the classroom and this in turn has helped her
better explain concepts to her students.
Concerns
As previously discussed, Fuller (1969)'s model of teacher development
describes three phases of pedagogical concerns. During early field experience,
prospective teachers become concerned about their survival as teachers (self
concerns). As they continue in teacher preparation, their concerns focus upon their
actual performance as teachers (task concerns). Finally, after having successful
teaching experiences, more mature teachers' concerns focus on having a meaningful
and positive impact on their students (impact concerns). When responding to the
question of whether she is concerned about what students think of her, Rebecca
replied,
I certainly want their respect and I want to present myself as someone who is
capable, knowledgeable, and has the resources to give them what they need. I
want them to trust me and not doubt my ability. That is a concern, but I don’t
care so much if they think I’m the best teacher or cool, and I don’t worry
about them seeing me out in the world. (Interview 2:1/23)
55
This shows that Rebecca has moved out of the phase of self-concerns consistent
with inexperienced teachers, because she is less concerned with how her students’
view her personally and instead focuses on students’ views of her professional
skills. Thus, she wishes to be seen as effective, but is more concerned with the
students’ understanding (impact concerns).
As part of the questions prepared about task concerns, Rebecca was asked if
she is concerned about whether she will experience problems with students who
are misbehaving or pushing boundaries. She responded that she doesn’t worry
about it anymore. If it happens, she is able to respond to it, but it hasn’t been too
much of an issue. Rebecca has learned that if you establish an environment of
respect, student behavior doesn’t become an issue. She also doesn’t worry about
students who are absent or late anymore. She has routines for handling students
who are consistently late, such as talking to them after class about why they are late
or if there is anything outside of class affecting their attendance. However, she
doesn’t feel that she has to handle everything alone. “We have a supportive family
here so I feel like I have people to go to if I do have an issue. We have the academic
director, the student counselors, SHAC [Student Health and Counseling Center], for
example” (Interview 2:1/23). This shows that Rebecca has an extensive
understanding of the resources that are available to her in the IELP and knows how
to reach out to the people in place to support her. Rebecca is no longer concerned
about task concerns that might worry less experienced teachers, such as difficult
students or managing attendance and tardiness issues. She has developed the
56
knowledge and experience to understand her teaching environment and how to
handle her classroom such that she can now focus on more complex, higher-level
teaching concerns.
Rebecca's responses to questions about what concerns her in teaching
demonstrates that she has moved through self concerns and task concerns, but now
has a stronger focus on impact concerns. While she still thinks about teaching tasks
related to performing her job well within the curriculum constraints (task
concerns), she doesn't worry about it.
I think I’ve always had some of the same concerns since it’s a curriculum
guided program. I was also pretty concerned with not messing up when I
first started because good reviews matter. I didn’t want to do anything that
made the students not like me. I wanted to make sure they were happy. Now
I’m more concerned with making sure the students are getting what they
need. (Interview 2:1/23)
This data indicates that Rebecca has moved past concerns about herself to concerns
about the impact her class has on her students' educational development and how
they relate to her as a professional.
Management of Teaching Enthusiasm and Relationships with Students
During a stimulated recall interview, Rebecca acknowledged that she had
experienced feelings of burnout at the time of the videos. She noticed that her
57
teaching during one of the videos appeared less relaxed and self-assured, and this
may have been due to feeling less enthusiastic about teaching overall. When asked
how she deals with potential teacher burnout today, Rebecca responded that it’s no
longer something that she has to work on.
When I come to class, I feel really excited about it. I’m energized by it. I’m
lucky; I really like all aspects of my job. That wasn’t always the case. I have
gone through periods of burnout in the past, where I didn’t want to teach in
the summer but I needed the money. I used to dream about having time to do
other things. But somewhere along the line, I just made a shift. I had more
freedom to teach courses I wanted to teach – I think that was part of it. I had
less stress because I already had lesson plans ready to go. Also becoming
more confident in the classroom and developing relationships with my
students helped me and it was kind of a cycle. I did a lot of personal growth
too and I think I got to a place where I was happier in general, and I think I
can make choices so just being more positive in general. (Interview 5:3/3)
It is clear that Rebecca experienced feelings of teacher burnout in the past but she
was able to improve her attitude about herself as a teacher. Greater confidence,
freedom to make choices, and a changed attitude have all helped Rebecca overcome
teacher burnout and maintain effectiveness and passion for her profession. This is
consistent with the findings of Yazdi et al. (2014), who found that teachers' selfefficacy has a reverse relationship with burnout.
58
Farrell (2013) discussed teachers’ levels of active engagement with their jobs
and their students in his characterization of what makes an expert ESL teacher. An
important part of their professional practice is going beyond the classroom. “Active
student involvement is an indication that the teachers care about their students and
this has been seen to have a positive influence on student motivation, participation
and learning” (Farrell, 2013, p. 1078). Likewise, Rebecca stated that part of her
teaching philosophy is about building community among her students.
One way to build community is to level the room. And one way to do that is to
lower yourself a bit and let yourself learn from them. So I don’t always plan
for that but if I see an opportunity, I try to do that. I think that leveling the
class lowers the affective filter because I’m not in this authority position all
the time. So, one way to do that is to let them teach me something. (Interview
2:1/23)
Similarly, in Farrell (2013), one expert teacher said that "their professional practice
as ESL teachers’ goes beyond the classroom, our relationships. It's part of creating a
whole environment for them and building a community for them" (p. 1079). His
research indicates that teachers who feel less engaged with their students are more
likely to feel dissatisfied with their teaching jobs. By building a community of
learners, Rebecca has allowed herself to actively engage with her students and
improve their learning environment. This has helped her build relationships with
students and maintain enthusiasm for her job.
59
Within any profession, including teaching, there will always be issues or
conflicts that arise. How an individual chooses to respond to these problems is an
indication of their development as a teacher. Rebecca's development of increased
enthusiasm for teaching when faced with potential burnout indicates that she has in
fact recognized conflicts in her teaching, thought about possibilities for change, and
tried solutions to improve. Likewise, Tsui (2003) states that in her expert Marina’s
teaching, there was a relationship between developing confidence and increased
enjoyment of teaching and a greater desire to improve as a teacher. As studies have
shown, greater belief in their self-efficacy causes teachers to be more open, less
critical, and more resilient in the face of setbacks (Hoy & Spero, 2005). Tsui (2003)
further argues that one of the differences between an expert and a non-expert was
their disposition to challenges - the expert "responded positively to challenges by
seeing them as opportunities to improve herself" while the non-expert "tried to
reduce their complexities and by so doing, minimized her opportunities to further
develop her capabilities" (p. 276). When confronting the problem of feeling burned
out and considering a career change, Rebecca did not shy away from this challenge
or give up on teaching. She made a shift in her attitude that helped her become a
more effective and positive teacher, which in turn made her feel more excited and
passionate about teaching. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993) argue that expertise
should be seen as dynamic because there are always opportunities to grow and
continue developing as a teacher. However, some teachers are more open to these
opportunities for change than others, and "see the conflicts, reflect on the
60
possibilities, and try out the alternatives" (p. 270). This is part of what separates an
expert teacher from a non-expert.
Support and Validation from Colleagues
Tsui (2003) argues that an important aspect of her expert teacher Marina's
development of expertise included her positive interactions with others in her
context of work. Marina consulted her colleagues, her principal, and participated in
"the discourse communities of ESL professionals" (p. 280). Rebecca has clearly
incorporated this important point into her own teaching. Rebecca stated that part of
the reason she feels more confident in her work as a teacher is that she has been
validated by her peers in the IELP. Her teaching evaluations were always good but
she believes they’re better now. Her peers have told her that they see her as
someone who’s really a leader in specific areas, such as curriculum design and
vocabulary. “When you hear that it’s really validating and it pushes you to keep
being a leader. A lot of my confidence has come from that validation in and outside
of the classroom from feedback from my peers” (Interview 1:1/15). Rebecca
describes the people in her context of work as a "family," indicating that they are an
important and supportive resource for her to grow as a teacher. This sense of
support has given Rebecca the space to develop her teaching and feel motivated to
take on greater responsibilities. Rebecca told me that this term she is part of the
curriculum committee and is leading a focus group on vocabulary. The encouraging
environment around her has helped Rebecca develop into an expert teacher because
61
she feels more confident and motivated. Experiencing positive feedback and
validation has had a positive impact on Rebecca’s view of herself as a teacher and
her desire to improve, which has in turn facilitated her development of expertise.
Gaining more freedom in her work environment has also given Rebecca the
space to further develop her teaching. Rebecca told me that she now has more
freedom to choose the classes she wants to teach because of the number of years
she has taught in the IELP. “As I gained seniority I’ve had more freedom of choice
and I’ve been able to teach the same classes and make materials for them. So I’ve
gained some expertise in certain areas” (Interview 1:1/15). Because she is not
concerned with having to prepare for a new class, Rebecca has the mental space to
focus on developing more advanced teaching strategies and materials. Tsui (2003)
writes that a teacher's whole environment plays a role in how they develop as
teachers. A supportive environment can increase a teacher's ability to develop
expertise, just as a perceived unsupportive environment can discourage it (Tsui,
2003). Experiencing support and validation and being given more freedom of choice
have both made Rebecca's teaching environment more conducive to developing
expertise.
Managing the Classroom for Learning
Rebecca demonstrated consistent knowledge of classroom management, or
what Tsui (2003) describes as ‘management for learning.’ There are a variety of
techniques she uses to help her students understand the expectations of the class.
62
For example, she has a PowerPoint with classroom expectations that she uses at the
beginning of the term. She also tries to review this PowerPoint before quizzes so the
students remember the rules for quizzes. This reminds them of her expectations and
makes it clear that cheating is unacceptable. Furthermore, she explained,
When I give homework, I try to be clear about how students can’t do it in
class, so they can give it to me half done or not give it to me at all. I’m not
going to take it late. I try to show by example that in the IELP, this is what we
do. It’s part of my responsibility to prepare them for the higher levels.
(Interview 3: 1/29)
This shows that Rebecca explicitly explains classroom management because she
knows it is in the students’ best interests to learn the expectations of the teaching
context. Her style of classroom management is firm, but fair. She demonstrates clear
pedagogical rationales for the decisions she makes in managing her classroom for
learning.
Rebecca described how her classroom management style has changed over
time. She used to be stricter and would take students' disruptions personally.
I used to be that kind of teacher who would tap the marker, stand quietly, flip
the lights, etc. I’ve experimented with it over the years and I’ve found that
little is better. Like if I’m yelling or saying “Come on”, I don’t know how
effective that always is. I don’t want to do things like say “Hey everybody,
63
look at me” or “Students!” I want to be more mindful of whether they are
learning by talking amongst themselves or whether they are actually getting
carried away. (Interview 1:1/15)
Now she believes in treating students like adults and working to keep the students
engaged so they will be less likely to get off task.
I don’t like the idea of having to be a disciplinarian because I don’t think
that’s how it works in the university setting. But I feel like I can and should
hold my ground when I need to. I try to be fair and I try to show compassion.
I feel like I'm an adult talking to other adults. I have more of a soft approach.
If most people are on task, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. It’s not
that I can’t, it’s just not my style. (Interview 4:2/13)
This shows how Rebecca's style of classroom management has become more
effective and efficient over the years, as she has gained greater experience.
During one interview, Rebecca demonstrated how various aspects of the
changes she sees in her teaching have come together to make her a more effective
teacher overall. In reference to bringing students’ attention back to her in a class,
she said,
Early on, I’d get a little frustrated. But now, I feel like I’m more relaxed and
have a sense of humor and don’t get all worked up. So raising my voice just a
little bit is enough. And it does relate to confidence. I try to be gentle with
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them. Gaining more experience and comfort has helped. They’re not doing it
to be mean, they’re just getting off track. So I might read the title of the story
and just say it in a little bit louder voice. So, it came from experience, it came
from trial and error, and also being more confident which has allowed me to
be more compassionate. (Interview 1:1/15)
This shows that as Rebecca’s confidence and ease have increased, her style of
managing the classroom has improved. This in turn has helped her understand her
students better, have a more compassionate attitude toward them, and therefore be
more likely to actively engage and develop relationships with them. These changes,
modifications, and adjustments over time are seen as a holistic series of
developments that have facilitated Rebecca’s development into an expert teacher.
DEVELOPMENT OVER TIME: STAYING THE COURSE
In addition to the changes demonstrated in the previous section, Rebecca's
teaching has stayed relatively constant in several ways. This is not seen as
detrimental to her teaching because finding a technique or way of thinking that
works and being able to continue with it also indicates a high level of teaching. This
aspect of Rebecca's teaching was characterized by the following five themes:
•
Beliefs and Teaching Philosophy
•
Reflection
•
Learning from Past Experiences
65
•
Knowledge of Lesson Planning and Curricular Goals
•
Students’ Needs within the Learning Context
Beliefs and Teaching Philosophy
Rebecca described her beliefs as characterized by the roles of the teacher and
the students and determined by contextual factors:
The teacher’s role is to impart knowledge to the students – content
knowledge and also strategies that will help them as future learners. It is the
role of the teacher to determine which strategies work for which contexts.
The students also have a role to play and that depends on the context.
Basically, the role of the teacher is to prepare the students by imparting
knowledge, including content and strategies. (Interview 3:1/29)
Tsui (2003) conceptualizes teacher knowledge as situated and integrated in a
teacher's set of beliefs. If we see beliefs as integrated with knowledge, it seems that
beliefs about teaching are highly specific to context and personal experiences. In her
description of her own beliefs, Rebecca acknowledged that there is a relationship
between her beliefs and the teaching context.
Rebecca reflected that her beliefs have remained relatively constant over the
years. “I have the same core beliefs that I had back then but now I’m much more
polished, much more filled out” (Interview 1:1/15). As we discussed her beliefs,
Rebecca elaborated,
66
I think I started off pretty naïve with kind of a blank slate and a lot to learn. I
don’t know that my beliefs have changed a lot because these things have all
informed my belief system but I don’t know that I had a strong belief system
to begin with. It’s more that I’ve grown in my belief system and it’s gotten
richer rather than I’ve changed. (Interview 3:1/29)
This shows that Rebecca considers her beliefs to have remained fairly consistent
over the years and that she has simply developed deeper beliefs as she has
accumulated experience. Woods (1996) states that each teacher's cognitive system
of beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge (BAK) is interconnected, such that "a change
in any one aspect will have an effect on other aspects" (p. 293). Thus, a teacher is
not likely to change one belief without it affecting other elements of her belief
system (Woods, 1996). Although she did not have a strong belief system as a
beginning teacher, Rebecca’s maintains that her beliefs have not changed
significantly from the time of the videos until today. Therefore, Rebecca's
development of expertise during this time did not seem to include a significant shift
in her belief system.
Rebecca’s teaching philosophy is characterized by empathy. She approaches
teaching by putting herself in the learner’s position and thinking about what she
would want or need in that position to achieve language proficiency. She views
teaching as a helping tradition. “I see my role as serving the students somehow”
(Interview 1:1/15). This view of the importance of empathy began when Rebecca
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was a college student surrounded by a culture of service. Rebecca’s prior
experiences created a strong foundation for her philosophy of empathy in teaching,
and this important view has not changed as she gained more experience. Rebecca
explained how her philosophy of putting herself in the learner’s position makes the
learning environment more enjoyable and amenable to learning:
The chaos can happen and I’m okay with slowly reining them back. Again, I
try to put myself in their situation. If I were in their situation, if I had a little
more time to engage, I might be more open to understanding something and
it would be more enjoyable for me. (Interview 2:1/23)
By putting herself in the learner’s position, Rebecca is able to create a more relaxed
and effective environment of learning for her students, which has in turn given her a
greater understanding of her own students and what they need to succeed in the
classroom. This parallels Tsui (2003)'s characterization of Marina, her expert
teacher. "When she selected materials and designed language tasks and activities,
she would put herself in the students' shoes and ask what they would like to do
rather than what she would like them to do" (p. 251). In this way, both Marina and
Rebecca are able to be effective teachers by putting themselves in the learner’s
position. Tsui (2003) characterizes this skill as an important aspect of expertise.
Reflection
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Reflection is another way in which teachers can develop their teaching and
grow into stronger teaching professionals. Rebecca has incorporated reflection into
her practice as a teacher for many years. “I’ve found that for me reflecting works
really well; reflecting on the classes and what I’ve done and how the students have
responded has worked well. The reflective practitioner idea is something I stumbled
on by working with graduate students” (Interview 3:1/29). As she is involved in
teacher education, Rebecca has extensive experience with reflection. Rebecca's
reflective practice is a skill she has been practicing for many years because she has
found it successful in the past. It may be that involvement in teacher education has
helped Rebecca become a more reflective practitioner. Likewise, critical reflection
was also an expert characteristics outlined in Farrell (2013). He found that what all
the expert teachers in his study had in common was “how they all engaged in some
form of critical reflection and critical examination of their own practices” (p. 1075).
Tsui (2003) also argued that "reflection and deliberation are characteristic of
expertise" (p. 277).
It is interesting to note that as part of the original study in which the Lab
School videos were made, Rebecca was asked to make a short audio reflection after
each class. These reflections were included as part of the Toolbox software so I was
able to listen to them. The reflections were mostly made up of short descriptions of
activities that had been done in class and how Rebecca felt about the class. When I
asked Rebecca about these reflections, she told me that she did not think she had
put very much effort into them. She described feeling tired after teaching her
69
classes, so she wanted to finish as quickly as possible. However, during the course of
our interviews, Rebecca told me that she really enjoyed thinking about her teaching,
discussing her classes, and reflecting on her previous teaching. This shows that
while Rebecca has incorporated reflection into her teaching for many years, she has
improved in her ability to reflect effectively. At present, she gets more enjoyment
out of reflecting and this has further contributed to her development of expertise.
Learning from Past Experiences
Rebecca showed that the process of learning from past experiences is very
valuable to her. She has continued to acquire knowledge over her many years as a
teacher by attending conferences, professional development workshops, and
participating in book groups with colleagues. Rebecca revealed that she has a lot of
her own teaching strategies and routines that she has collected and that in the IELP,
we have a huge share drive. I feel like there’s a wealth of activities. I have
strategies that I can apply in different courses - like I apply vocabulary or
pronunciation strategies in reading classes. I can adapt different activities to
work with productive vs. receptive skills. I would say I definitely have a lot
from teaching for so many years, writing myself notes, collecting things,
having the share drive, going to workshops, etc. (Interview 6:3/10)
This shows that Rebecca has developed a wide repertoire of teaching strategies and
activities from various experiences, including professional development workshops,
70
activities shared among colleagues, and her own teaching experiences. In Farrell's
(2013) study, his participants showed that they could make judgments based on
their combined past experiences, such as knowledge from professional journals,
conferences, and their colleagues' comments. Also, they all “seemed to have an
extensive collection of routines and strategies from prior experiences to use in
lessons” (Farrell, 2013, p. 1076). This is one of the aspects of the experts’ teaching
that helped to characterize them as expert teachers.
Rebecca uses specific routines in her class because she has learned from past
experiences that they are effective in the classroom.
Routines are really important because it gives them [the students] something
to expect and creates a good learning environment. One routine is to put the
date and agenda on the board. We did the name cards until we learned
everyone’s names. At the beginning of a new chapter, I always give them a
vocabulary list. That’s part of my routine for a new chapter. (Interview
4:2/13)
This shows that Rebecca has learned from teaching experiences in the past how to
implement successful routines in the classroom in order to improve the learning
environment of the students. Farrell (2013) also found that his expert teachers were
"able to call on a wide repertoire of routines and strategies when making
instructional decisions" (p. 1077). One of these teachers said that "she makes use of
her repertoire of routines according to her students’ needs and her own preference
71
as a teacher" (Farrell, 2013, p. 1077). Likewise, Rebecca explained her rationale for
the routine of introducing a new chapter in the same way, as "It’s kind of like a
routine because then they’re getting used to how content is introduced and I think
that’s good practice" (Interview 4:2/13). This shows that Rebecca uses routines to
make new content easier for her students to understand. Thus, as Farrell (2013)
describes, an ability to use routines and teaching strategies developed from prior
experiences seems to be an important characteristic of teacher expertise.
Knowledge of Lesson Planning and Curricular Goals
Rebecca has a comprehensive understanding of the curriculum of which her
learners are part and knows how to teach within it in order to meet curricular
objectives. Rebecca described her lesson plans as using a combination of activities
from the curriculum-mandated textbook and activities she has made herself.
In this class, they have two textbooks and I want them to feel like they’ve
paid for something worthwhile. These two textbooks are good because there
are activities where they can answer questions about their own lives. But if I
think the class is getting too book heavy I’ll sometimes use a different activity
that I’ve created. (Interview 2:1/23)
This shows an understanding of the need to work with the materials provided by
the curriculum while still wanting to incorporate other self-made activities in order
to make the class interesting for the students. Rebecca’s experience with teacher
72
education may have also contributed to her strong understanding of lesson
planning.
In our interviews, Rebecca often referenced the IELP curriculum or the
curricular objectives of certain subject areas such as reading or grammar, as
rationales for various pedagogical choices. “I’m concerned with whether they’re
learning and how to meet the guidelines of the curriculum…I think I've always had
some of the same concerns since it's a curriculum-guided program” (Interview
2:1/23). This shows that an understanding of the parameters of the curriculum has
always been a consideration for Rebecca and an important part of her teaching.
Farrell (2013) found that expert teachers "not only have mastery of their subject
matter, but that they are able to manipulate it and present it in a variety of ways so
that they can not only teach what they need to teach, but also keep their students
happy" (p. 1075). Like the expert teachers in this study, Rebecca also considers her
students’ affects, such as when she plans different activities if the class is too bookheavy, as well as the constraints of the curriculum in order to make a positive and
educational learning environment.
Rebecca revealed during our interviews that lesson planning has not changed
very much in her teaching. She still plans detailed lessons because she wants to feel
prepared for class.
I want to make sure I have thought about the previous lesson and reflected
so I know where I’m going with the next lesson. I don’t need as much time
73
around the lesson now but I still want to make sure I’m building and paying
close attention to what we didn’t get to cover, what the students are still
struggling with. (Interview 1:1/15)
This helps her know that she is adequately progressing through the curriculum and
is able to fully meet the students' needs. She continues to devote a lot of time to
planning lessons, just as she did when she was a newer teacher because she wants
to thoroughly meet her students’ needs.
I’m concerned with the students’ needs and how to best meet them. I’m
interested in tried-and-true ways and also new ways that might work for
them. I guess that’s why I put a lot of thought into my lesson plans. I don’t
always know students’ expectations because students come from different
cultures so it’s hard to know what they expect, but I hope that I can meet
their language needs. (Interview 2:1/23)
Likewise, Tsui (2003) reports that Marina, her expert teacher, never goes to class
without preparation and a lesson plan because she would not be confident that the
lesson would go well if she didn't. This indicates that for these teachers, part of what
makes them highly competent instructors is their desire to make detailed lesson
plans that ensure they will be prepared.
Students’ Needs within the Learning Context
74
Rebecca often demonstrated an understanding of the intricacies of the IELP
learning context and how to respond to her students’ needs within that context. We
discussed her approach to a class and how it depends on the context and the type of
learners in a particular class.
I also try to encourage spontaneity and give students time to ask questions.
Maybe if one person has a question, someone else might have the same
question. [In the current class] It seems like they want me to take time to
answer someone’s question, even if they haven’t individually asked the
question – there seems to be a group mindset in that way. (Interview 2:1/23)
This shows that Rebecca understands her learners’ unique needs and desires in the
context of her class. She has adapted to the students’ cultural backgrounds and
expectations in her current class in order to better meet their needs. The situated
context in which a teacher functions is crucial to how effective he or she is as an
educator. Woods (1996) also suggests that "expert teaching develops within the
context of a teacher's background and within the context of a particular course and
course goals" (p. 294). Rebecca’s example shows that she not only thinks about the
context of this particular course, but also about the specific cohort and these
students’ cultures and expectations.
The data indicates that Rebecca frequently sees opportunities to help
students improve their understanding of English in the classroom. During an
observation of one of Rebecca’s classes, she chose to give the students their usual 10
75
minute break after a group activity. This ended up being 10 minutes earlier than she
had originally planned, but the students had begun talking amongst themselves after
finishing the activity. She explained, “It seemed better to let them take their break
rather than trying to refocus them for 10 minutes. Sometimes after a quiz, we’ll take
a break so they can have time to relax and refocus. I try to think about student
energy like that” (Interview 2:1/23). Clearly, Rebecca made a pedagogical decision
with the hope that it would improve the students’ experience in the classroom and
help them learn better. Likewise, Tsui (2003) describes Marina, an expert teacher,
as "able to see the possibilities for ESL learning in her context of work, and by
making use of these possibilities, she shaped a context that was conducive to ESL
learning" (p. 254).
It is clear that Rebecca has an understanding of how to present subject
matter to groups of students in appropriate ways. At the time of the videos as well
as in her current classes, Rebecca teaches lower-level learners of English. During
one of the stimulated recall sessions, she reflected on her previous teaching, "I
noticed that I spoke clearly, slowly, and repeated a lot, which I think is appropriate
for the group" (Interview 3:1/29). This shows that Rebecca has integrated an
appropriate style of speech into her teaching for many years, from the time of the
videos until now. She continued,
I definitely try to use language that is not confusing…just keep the language
what you need to convey what you want them to do and don’t say anything
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else. I’m conscious of keeping the language as simple as possible, breaking
things down, repeating and keeping myself at a good volume. I noticed myself
doing that there [in the video] too so that’s good. It’s heartening. (Interview
3:1/29)
This shows that Rebecca has learned which type of language is appropriate and
helpful for lower-level students and she continues to use this style of language in
her present teaching.
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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
There are three tentative conclusions that can be drawn from the results of
this research. First, based on the characterizations of expertise described in this
paper, Rebecca has developed into an expert teacher during the course of her
teaching career because she demonstrates the characteristics of an expert outlined
in prior research (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986; Farrell,
2013; Tsui, 2003, 2005). This study adopts the view that expertise is a process
rather than a state to be achieved (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993), and so there is
not a clear indication that Rebecca 'became' an expert at a certain point in her
career. However, based on the data available, at the time of the videos Rebecca did
not appear to show all the discussed characteristics of an expert that she does in her
current teaching. Therefore, it appears that from the time of the videos eight years
ago to the current time, Rebecca shows more of the characteristics of an expert
teacher.
Second, on the debate within the field of teacher expertise, this study has
examined two different characterizations of expertise put forth by Dreyfus and
Dreyfus (1986) and Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993). Tsui (2003), whose study
corroborated Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993), sees expertise as requiring
significant effort, even after many years of experience. Her expert teacher, Marina,
still spent a significant amount of effort planning and modifying her lessons, making
78
detailed notes of what she would ask students in class, and “problematizing the
unproblematic,” or working to improve certain facets of her teaching that she
considered to be in need of improvement. These actions have been described by
Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993) as "progressive problem solving", which is thought
to be a crucial aspect of expertise (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1993; Tsui, 2003). At
the same time, Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) describe expertise as fluid, automatic,
and instinctive. The "knowing how" and "knowing that" of teaching are integrated
into an innate and spontaneous system in which teachers respond to classroom
events based on their "hunches" or "intuitions" and often struggle to describe in
detail exactly why they made certain judgments in a given situation.
From the data, we can see that Rebecca integrates aspects of both of these
ideas. Tsui (2005) acknowledges that previous studies of outstanding teachers have
shown that there appears to be some truth in both of these characterizations.
Rebecca often described her knowledge of "knowing how," such as when she said,
"I’m better at doing it than explaining it" (Interview 5:3/3). At the same time,
Rebecca still plans detailed lessons and works to improve herself as a teacher. For
example, she takes on enriching responsibilities at work, such as participating in
TESOL conferences and working with a curriculum committee to redesign the
curriculum for her class. These projects are not requirements for her job, but enrich
her experience as a teacher. This indicates that “progressive problem solving” is an
important aspect of Rebecca's teaching and has helped her overcome problems that
have presented themselves throughout the course of her teaching. For Rebecca,
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aspects of both characterizations of expertise are important and present themselves
in different ways in her teaching. This points to the possibility that in teaching,
expertise can be characterized by both deliberate efforts to improve and a kind of
intuitive decision making that informs classroom practices. Tsui (2005) suggests
that the reason for this is a difference between “expertise” and “expert
performance,” such that “expert performance” is the fluid, automatic, and intuitive
actions of an expert while “expertise” is the hard work and dedication to selfimprovement that helps an expert perform routinely and spontaneously. This
thought-provoking characterization of the dual sides of expertise requires further
studies so that we can fully understand the varying conceptions of teacher expertise.
Third, this study examined possible changes over an experienced teacher's
career span based on the teacher's reflections about how her teaching has
developed. The data shows that the most salient and important development in this
teacher is her change in attitude. Watching her teaching from the time of the videos,
Rebecca noticed many aspects of her teaching that had stayed relatively constant.
For example, she noticed that she still speaks clearly and tries to include a lot of
repetition to explain concepts clearly to students. However, she discussed an
explicit positive change in her attitude that she experienced after the time of the
videos that caused her to improve in various aspects of her teaching, such as moving
away from feelings of teacher burnout and becoming excited about teaching again.
What stood out the most was her more relaxed and authentic demeanor in the
classroom and how much she enjoys the process of teaching now because she has
80
greater mental energy for teaching. Furthermore, this shift in attitude has affected
some of the small changes in her practice. Rebecca explained that when she watched
her teaching in one of the videos, she felt that she would now speak more calmly and
trust that she knows how to explain the content to students. This is because she
feels more confident in the classroom and more excited about and energized by
teaching. This seems to indicate that her change in attitude has had the greatest
impact on her development into an expert teacher.
LIMITATIONS
This study is limited by the constraints of the data collection instruments
used in this study. I could only describe the experience of my participant at the time
of the video recordings in 2007 and during her teaching in 2015. It is therefore
impossible to determine exactly how the participant's teaching evolved during the
time in between. This study is also limited by the brevity of data collection. A more
longitudinal study, in which more time could be devoted to examining both the
teacher’s current teaching and her previous teaching, would have likely led to more
comprehensive and in-depth results about how the participant’s cognition changed
or did not change. Furthermore, Rebecca works in teacher education so she has
spent time working with pre-service teachers on improving their teaching and this
may have influenced some of her responses to my questions. Because not all
teachers have teacher education experience, the process of developing expertise
81
described in this study may not be reflective of teachers with different levels of
experience in teacher education.
Because the design is a case study, the results are specific to one teacher in
one context. As Kang and Cheng (2014) describe in their own study, a single case
“cannot answer all the questions involved in so complicated a matter as teacher
change” (p. 184). Teacher change and development appears to be a highly personal
and contextually sensitive topic that can vary greatly amongst individuals. The
influences and factors that helped my participant improve and develop into an
expert teacher may not be relevant to teachers in other contexts. As in all qualitative
research, there is an aspect of subjectivity inherent in the research process. The
analysis was done through the lens of the researcher and is thus influenced by my
biases as an individual. While this study does not provide the basis for any
prescriptive conclusions, the purpose of this case study was never to generalize to
teachers in other teaching programs. The rich, thick description that I obtained
through careful description and analysis of one teacher could not have been
accomplished with multiple participants.
The participant in this study is working within an intensive English program
at an American university. Teachers in different contexts, such as community ESL or
universities abroad, might have very different developmental trajectories and might
show changes or consistencies that were different from those demonstrated by my
participant. Tsui (2005) posits that there may be "cultural differences in perceptions
82
about what constitutes expertise in teaching" (Tsui, 2005, p. 171). The teacher used
in this study is operating within a pedagogical tradition specific to one culture. This
teacher’s experience in teacher education could be another factor, as teachers in
different contexts may be more or less familiar with teacher education. Therefore,
interpretations of what it means to be an expert teacher who demonstrates a
commitment to students could be very different in other cultures (Tsui, 2005).
IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
These limitations highlight several areas for further research. In case study
research, many case studies on one topic can be generalized to make stronger
conclusions about that topic. The present study was designed to contribute to the
larger body of research on teacher expertise and further case studies, over longer
periods of time, would lead to a greater understanding of the development of
expertise over time. Tsui (2003) also suggests that experienced teachers can look to
case studies of their peers for greater understanding and awareness of their own
teaching. An expert teacher’s ways of learning and teaching “may serve as a
reference for both novice and experienced teachers to think about their work as
teachers” (p. 281). Understanding expert teachers’ mechanism of developing
expertise can also contribute to teacher education by serving as guides to preservice teachers and giving them the tools to know how to improve. Thus, the
present case study can contribute to both the larger field and individual teachers
seeking to better understand their own teaching and how to improve.
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Rebecca reported several areas in which her teaching appears to have
changed and several that have remained relatively constant. This might mean that
as teachers develop over time, they do not necessarily need to demonstrate changes
in many or most areas of their teaching. If an aspect of their teaching is working, it is
not necessary to change it in order to become a more effective teacher. A teacher
who understands what is effective in the classroom will likely be better able to
determine what in her teaching needs to be improved and what needs to remain
consistent. Thus, for this teacher some changes and some consistencies were
necessary for her to develop the characteristics of an expert teacher. Further
research is needed to better understand to what degree change is necessary for
development of expertise.
Expertise in teaching is a highly complex area of teacher cognition that can
be best understood through further research into how teachers develop expertise
over time. There continues to be a debate over whether expertise should be
characterized as tacit and automatic or deliberate and effortful (Tsui, 2005). Further
research into how to best characterize expertise in teaching is needed before we
have a strong understanding of this construct as a whole and how to encourage
teachers to develop into expert teachers. By better understanding how teachers
develop expertise, we can begin to recognize the stages they go through on their
way to becoming and maintaining expertise. Being able to identify the factors that
help a teacher develop into an expert can help teacher educators to identify and
encourage those factors in pre-service and less experienced teachers. Tsui (2005)
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writes that understanding the processes and learning mechanisms that “mediate
and support the development of expertise” is very valuable to fully comprehending
the nature of expertise (p. 184).
Clearly there are different ways of viewing the mental representations of
teaching that we see in experts. Therefore, further research into understanding how
expertise is developed and maintained is necessary. As Bell (2005) states, “Foreign
language teaching is a complex, multi-dimensional process that means different
things to different people” (pp. 259-260). But despite its complexity, it is still
valuable to work to develop a greater understanding of how to mold and create
effective teachers. Thus, further research should continue to explore how teachers
learn the skills and knowledge to develop into experts and how to best incorporate
these processes into improving teachers’ capacity to develop expertise.
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APPENDIX
Sample Interview Questions: Stimulated recall
1. How did you feel about the class?
2. When you watch the video, do you notice ways that your teaching has
changed or not changed?
3. To what do you attribute these changes or lack of changes?
Sample Interview Questions: Post-observations
1. Can you think of any ways that your teaching beliefs have changed over the
years or have they remained constant? What do you think accounts for this
change or lack of change?
2. Are you concerned about the impact your class will have on your students?
3. We’ve discussed teaching context some already in terms of the academic vs.
the community contexts, so I want to know a little more about this subject.
How does your teaching context inform your teaching decisions?
4. Do you use or draw on a repertoire of teaching strategies and activities in the
classroom?
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